Cold-Blooded
by scribblescribblescribble
Summary: Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke, wants his daughter Rose to resume her training and follow in his footsteps. Knowing how little she trusts him, he's come up with the perfect bait-a new mother. Yukie is everything Slade isn't-warm, reliable, kind, but her interest in the supernatural is taking her places there's no coming back from.
1. Rose: Wintergreen Remembered

Obligatory Disclaimers: I do not own any characters belonging to DC Comics and I am not getting paid for this.

A/N: This story began life as an Arkham Asylum universe fic about Mr. Freeze and his wife, but it morphed. The secondary plot with Yukie, Slade and Rose somehow took over. However, even though the first few chapters focus heavily on the Freeze situation, it will all become relevant and connect up in the end. **ALSO: FOR LONG TERM READERS, THIS IS A NEW FIRST CHAPTER!**

* * *

_**There are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers.**—St Teresa of Avila._

Rose looked down at the address on her phone and then up at the listing between the elevators. _ Dr. Angela Torchild, Suite 803, 4:15 PM_, her phone said. Dr. A. Torchild, Suite 803, Family Therapist, said the listing. She didn't want to be there, but she'd promised Robin she'd get counseling, and he was the only one of the Titans who gave her a real chance.

Her phone also said it was 4:12 at the moment. There was no getting out of it now. Tucking her phone away again, she stabbed the up button. Two seconds later, she stabbed it again. There was no sign that the elevator was responding, let alone on its way.

Sixteen was not an age known for its patience. "Damn it," she swore, and made for the stairs. Wrenching the door open so hard it crashed into the wall and stuck there, she sprinted up all eight flights, taking the steps two at a time, and was barely breathing hard when she reached the eighth floor landing. Even then, she didn't bother to stop and push the bar to open the door to the hallway—she simply leapt, drawing both knees up, and kicked it open, transitioning the move into a smooth tuck-and-roll on the carpet. It was easier to move and just not think.

Back on her feet again, she oriented herself as to where suite 803 was located—and took a moment to smooth out her clothes before she intruded on the therapist's turf. The receptionist nodded and gave her a clipboard with a form to fill out before she saw the doctor.

Rose sat down on the waiting room sofa, checked boxes, and scribbled in the relevant information where she was supposed to, but there wasn't any box or space for the really important things. Like: _Metagene. Active/Inactive? If active, how and when did it become active?_ _ List powers/abilities acquired in space provided._

Finally she handed it back. The receptionist looked it over, asked for her insurance, and disappeared into the next room for a moment. When she returned, she told Rose she could go in.

Rose did as instructed, glancing around. The therapist had opted to decorate her space in soft, gentle colors and livened it up with some house plants and an aquarium with fancy guppies. The woman herself was rather short, plump, and cheerful.

"Rose Wilson? I'm Doctor Torchild, but you can call me Angela. Please, have a seat. You can take off your coat if you want to, whatever makes you most comfortable."

Rose did, choosing a red leather chair as far from the desk as she could. "Did you read my file?" she asked the doctor as she undid the toggles on her duffle coat.

"No further than to note your name and date of birth. I prefer to learn about new patients first hand. What stunning hair you have! Is that your natural color?"

"Yes," Rose fingered a lock of her milk-white hair. "I don't have albinism. It's a mutation I inherited from my dad. Look—you're the third therapist I've been referred to, so this is getting a bit old. Do you have any experience treating metas?"

"Metas?" Dr. Torchild asked.

"Yeah. People with the metagene. Supers. Costumed adventurers with superpowers. People who are living the life. Because I _am_ one, and I don't like having to prove I'm not delusional or lying over and over again. Doctor Kinkaid didn't believe me until I showed him, and Doctor Powell left the office and didn't come back while I was there after I told him. It should be in my file by now. Go ahead, I'll wait."

The therapist frowned, and consulted her computer. "Um…I see. Limited precognitive ability to see into the future while engaged in combat; possesses augmented strength, speed, stamina, agility and intelligence."

"Along with emotional and mental instability," Rose added. "I know I need help, but unless you know what life as a costumed adventurer is like, I don't know that you'll be able to help me any. We have a different baseline for normal."

"What is that baseline?" Dr. Torchild asked. "How is your normal different from anybody else's normal?"

"…I have no idea where to begin." Rose slid down in her chair.

"You could begin by telling me about your family," the doctor suggested.

"My family. Okay. Do me a favor and Google 'Deathstroke'."

"Why?"

"Because. Just _do_ it, okay?" Rose snapped.

"Very well," The therapist did not lose her cheerful attitude until she began to read. "Oh. Killed an entire room full of high level figures in organized crime….with a handful of pocket change? Responsible for the assassination of…"

"He's my father." Rose cut into the recital of her dad's most recent and colorful deeds. "I didn't meet him until I was six years old, because Mom took my brother Joseph and went into hiding after they were attacked by North Koreans in retaliation for something he did. She was pregnant with me at the time. I think getting pregnant again was a last ditch attempt to save their marriage, but he didn't know about me yet. She faked her death and Joey's death and moved across the country to Washington state, where I was born."

"Your father," Torchild repeated. "It says here he was the subject of a military experiment which failed, but left him with the same powers that you have. Did you inherit those powers from him?"

"Not really. I inherited the potential to develop powers, but I didn't have them until after he injected me with the same serum the military used on him. Without my consent or knowledge, either."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Feel? How do you think I feel? I fucking _hate_ it! I have psychotic episodes and impulse control problems, none of my teammates trust me and I can forget ever having a normal life!" She sat upright in her chair again, her nails digging into the chair arms and leaving tears behind.

"It's all right to be angry, Rose. Where was your mother when this was going on?"

"Dead—probably." Rose forced her hands to let go of the chair arms and moved them to her lap.

"'Probably?" the therapist asked.

"That's part of the whole different baseline normal thing. Among costumed adventurers, death is never that far away, but it's not always final. People come back all the time. Anyway, she might not have approved, but she was always, like, 'In _this_ family, we're soldiers. It's what we do.' Her name was Lillian Kane and she was a captain in the Army when she and Dad met. _ She_ trained_ him_, can you believe that? She fired sharpshooter and was an unarmed combat instructor. I think it always pissed her off that she couldn't serve in combat."

"You sound as though you approve of her and resent her at the same time," the doctor observed.

"That's about right. You see, she—I don't—She was always unhappy. I don't remember her ever being happy. She was always angry and afraid."

"Because of your father's profession, or were there other reasons?"

"Because of him—I think. I don't know for sure. I mean, the things you hear women in the military go through—but I don't know." Rose looked at her hands.

"What about your brother Joseph? Where is he now?"

"Also dead—probably. He was six years older than me. He had this power where he could go immaterial and possess people—he could put their bodies on just like he was wearing a coat, but the problem was, their minds kind of _leaked_. Into his. And after a while, they sort of possessed him, and he did some things that—. Dad…Dad had to kill him." Rose's mouth trembled, and she went into her purse for a tissue.

"I see."

"I had another brother who was older than Joey, Grant. He's dead too. Probably."

"Is there anyone you know who_ is_ dead permanently?" the doctor joked.

Rose looked up, suddenly furious. "Yes. His name was Wintergreen, William Wintergreen. He was like Dad's right arm, and he was my friend. I used to wish he was my real dad, because he was just…just the _**best**_ person I ever met. He used to take me out for afternoon tea sometimes, and, and, to museums or the park—things neither my mom nor my dad ever did. He even stood up to Dad when he thought something was really wrong, and Dad listened to him. I just loved him, and _no_, he was _never _inappropriate. He's dead now. Truly and forever dead. You want to know how I know? Because Joey took over Dad's body and made Dad cut his head off and then mount it on the wall like a hunting trophy!"

"Oh—Rose, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean—." The doctor tried to backtrack but Rose was crying now, and it took a while before she could speak again.

"How messed up can one life get?" Rose said when she could, her voice both hoarse and squeaky from the tears. "Really, how much more can it? But you know something? I still love my dad, and I miss him. Even though he's done evil things, even though he turned on me and tried to kill me. Even though his training was hell. He's all I've got left, and he remembers Wintergreen too. I wouldn't want to live with him again, not when it would be just the two of us, but if Wintergreen was still alive, I would. It would be okay, then.

"I just want a family. I want a home. I want to be happy."

"You know what they say," the doctor said, world-weary, "Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it."

The session continued, but at the end of it Rose Wilson left and never returned. Because Rose_ did_ get what she asked for, after a fashion, and after she had it, she didn't look back.


	2. Victor Fries: Unfrozen

Through the observation window, Victor Fries watched as the nurse adjusted the IV pump, shutting off the sedative infused drip line which had kept Nora in an induced coma for the last thirteen days. There had been twelve human trials of the new treatment for Huntington's disease and ten successes before he risked reviving his wife. However, after so many crushed hopes and false starts, he judged it more compassionate to let her transition from cryosleep to medicated slumber until they know for sure that he has finally succeeded. Better that she should never know than suffer the disappointment. He could bear it, after all. He had borne decades of it by now.

Two copies of a single defective gene had led to Nora's terrible illness, which would have proven fatal. The treatment itself came in two stages; first, a suppressant to turn off the genes which produced the defective protein that meant the decline of both body and mind, then a symbiotic culture which synthesized good proteins, and all of it would be useless if he had not properly prepared her to begin with. If ice ruptured her cells, bursting and destroying the walls, all he would get back would be…so much spoiled meat.

Yet all signs pointed to the positive—brain activity as normal for a sedated patient, healthy protein markers in her bloodstream—and finally, finally, it was time to shut off the narcotic drip and let her come to. Sleeping Beauty, come to life thanks to true love. The corners of his mouth lifted, curving into a smile. Hair the color of spun gold, eyes like a summer day, skin like…

"I can only imagine what this is like for you," a voice intruded. Victor winced, tried to hide it, and forced the smile back to his face. Bruce Wayne. He owed the man a great deal, it was true, and so he should be tolerant. It would not be for much longer, after all.

"Quite so," he replied, taking refuge in a polite phrase. "I—we—have so much to thank you for."

"Not at all," Wayne shrugged it off affably. "I saw her dance once, years ago._ Giselle_. She was—is—a great artist. Not to mentions that I have always regretted the tangential part I had in…what happened to you, so once you gave up crime…well, that's all water under the bridge now. Say," the man's voice dropped, and he leaned closer.

"Yes," Victor prompted after a pause.

"Your assistant is one of the most exquisite creatures I've ever seen," Wayne confided, glancing at the woman who shared the observation room with them. "But—is there something _wrong_ with her?"

That was about the level of sensitivity he expected of Wayne. All he saw was that Yukie was attractive and that there was something strange about her. Freeze glanced in her direction to see if she had overheard, and concluded she had not. Long-limbed and slender, clad in black save for an apple green scarf at her throat, his assistant was intent on her tablet phone, just as Wayne's adoptive son was on his phone. While he watched, she reached for the bottle of water on the table before her. Watching her move was like watching a film run slightly too fast, every action a trifle jerky and erratic.

"Ms. Kuwano has been in my employ for twelve years. In that time, she has proven herself invaluable," he replied. "Without her efforts, this day might not have come for another five or ten years. It is true that she has a physical handicap, but only very shallow individuals devalue her for it."

"Exactly," Wayne beamed, the implied insult going right over his head, "I mean, that face! Those legs! Kuwano—what is that? Chinese? Japanese?"

"Japanese," Victor Fries answered, curtly.

"And is she single?"

"As far as I am aware, yes." His assistant did not suffer fools gladly, and fools with 'Yellow Fever' least of all. _Let him tell her how much he likes sushi and that Asian women have always fascinated him, and see how far he gets. She'll reply so gently he'll think he's being stroked with a feather, until he starts to bleed_. "But you have reminded me there is a matter that I must speak to her about. If you will excuse me?"

Freeze had brought the smallest portable envirounit with him for this, as the cryocontainer it held was no bigger than a pint thermos. What was within the container took up very little room at that stage. Taking it in both hands, he crossed the room to stand before his assistant.

There was actually quite a lot wrong with Yukime Kuwano, and what_ was_ wrong was unique to the point where her condition deserved a name of its own. The very nearest he had been able to determine was that it mimicked some symptoms of Huntington's, (the reason he had originally recruited her) and certain symptoms of Parkinson's, but without the progressive degeneration those diseases led to. Whatever had caused it, her condition was stable.

Besides the motor function disorder, she suffered from hypohydrosis. She did not, could not, perspire. Since perspiration or to put it more vulgarly, sweating, was the body's way of cooling itself, that meant she was quite uncomfortable in temperatures above the mid-seventies and in danger of heatstroke above ninety. High humidity only worsened the condition. Excessive physical exertion also caused her to overheat.

Conversely, she was able to tolerate much colder conditions than most, one of the reasons he had kept her on. There was even a narrow band of temperature where they were both relatively comfortable—relative being the operative world.

Although hypohydrosis was a life-threatening condition, it was manageable. There was another aspect of her syndrome which was even personally devastating to her. Well, she had fulfilled her side of their agreement. Now it was time for him to fulfill his, and it made him genuinely happy to do so.

"Sir?" she inquired, setting aside her tablet and standing up.

"Yukie," he replied, smiling. "I know we have both waited a very long time for this day, yet at last it is here."

"As you say, sir." She had never entirely shed all formality.

"I have been unfair to you, and I admit it freely. Loyalty and ability such as yours deserved greater trust and recognition on my part. I hope you will forgive me." He held out the cryounit.

"Is that—?" Her breath caught in her lungs.

"Your daughters. Twenty embryos, in case…" In case of miscarriage, failure to implant, failure to thrive? Better not to smear and shadow this bright day with such fears. "In case. I have also kept cell samples of each, should need arise. Gene cleaned and free from anomalies. They will be fertile and as healthy as I could make them. I did introduce a twelve point five percent recombinant factor, so they will not be identical to you or to each other."

Infertility was the final curse of her condition; her ovaries produced hormones but no gametes. He had engineered the embryos from her somatic cells, and since she lacked a 'Y' chromosome, being female, so all the embryos would be, of necessity, female as well. Genetically speaking, her 'daughters' would actually be her sisters, and not far from being her twins.

Her hands were shaking from more than just the disorder as she reached out to take the unit from his hands. Her eyes grew shiny and wet as she wrapped the hunk of metal, glass and plastic in her arms.

To break the somberness of the moment, he essayed a little joke. "I would advise that you not imitate that foolish woman who chose to bear eight in a single gestation."

"Oh, I will not!" she exclaimed. Hugging the cryounit to her chest as she was, she had no hand free to wipe her eyes, and the first two tears welled over. Not like diamonds on her cheeks, no, too round, too organic. "I know better. Dr. Fries—I thank you." She bowed to him.

"Don't thank me—you earned them. Indeed, the slate shows me more in your debt than you are in mine. Twelve years…" Twelve years. He and Nora had been married for eight before she entered cryostasis. Strange to think he and his assistant had been together longer than he and his wife, in terms of waking hours. "…What will you do now? Go back to Japan?"

"To visit, perhaps. Not to stay. I am more Japanese-American than I am Japanese, now. I think I will take a vacation first…I have not had one in years….then decide where I will settle down. Somewhere where the summers are cool and not humid…somewhere peaceful and quiet."

"Nowhere near Gotham, then. You will be in no financial difficulties, I trust? You have been handling my finances long enough."

"No. With my percentage, I will do well enough. I have made investments—but you will have to find another manager now." She looked surprised by the thought.

"I think that after today I will have more time and more attention to give my personal affairs, but I thank you for being concerned. Nora and I… Yukie…is there someone in _your_ life?" He genuinely did not know. He might say he never pried out of respect for her autonomy, but in his happiness he wanted to think she would have some happiness of her own.

"When a man asks such a question I usually have to remind him he is married," she smiled wryly, "but… there is someone I have been seeing for some time now."

"Then I hope you will be happy together. Loneliness is not a natural human condition."

"I thank you, but…I am afraid he is not the sort of man one marries." She looks at him with knowing eyes. "We cannot choose who we will love. It happens or it does not happen."

"I hope you find that someone, then, someday, in lasting happiness. You will…stay in touch, won't you?" How often had he inwardly derided such polite, conventional phrases as meaningless, and now when it mattered, he could find no others.

"Of course! I will send you emails and baby pictures. Beginning with ultrasounds." Her eyes still brimmed, but her smile was radiant.

"I look forward to them," he smiled in return. "But now, I must go to Nora."

"Wait-," she said, turning to set the cryounit down. "Before you go—will you not shake hands?"

"Ah—of course," he said, extending his. "You're not going now, are you? I'm sure Nora will want to meet you."

"Not—not today, sir. Today is for you and her. I will go and make sure the house is ready for her homecoming."

"Ah. An excellent point. What? What's wrong?" She had not taken the proffered hand.

"Without the glove. As a favor." Her face was utterly serious.

He could not imagine why, but it would be petty and ungrateful to refuse. "I suppose—as long as it is brief. I would not want to hurt you." For this most important day, he had worn the simplest cryosuit he had, without servomotors, weapons or enhancements. The change in him would be hard enough to explain to Nora without exacerbating it by turning up fully armored. He unsealed the wrist, and frost instantly began to condense out of the air onto his skin.

Her hand was furnace-hot, and when they touched, vapor curled up like breath seen on January air. One touch, and she drew back her hand.

"I was hardly a person when we met," she explained while he replaced the glove. "Recall how I flinched when people looked at me. I could not meet people's eyes. My prospects for employment were limited to low level positions and menial work. You taught me through example, and in encouragement, how to be human. The slate is clean. There is no debt. But now…she is waiting." Yukie pointed to the observation window, where in the other room, Nora's eyelids were visibly flickering.

_How strange…I never noticed anything odd about her behavior nor had I any idea I inspired anyone in anything, let alone her. You never really know people._

As he left the room he vaguely noticed that the moment he was out of the way, Wayne stepped up to speak to Yukie, but his attention was elsewhere. Drawing up a chair by Nora's bedside, he tenderly took her hand in his gloved one, holding it and caressing it gently with his thumb. He smiled as he remembered the afternoon in his dorm room when, midway through their study session, she had reached over and untied his shoe. They hadn't even been dating then, having met through a group sign-up sheet. Weeks went by, and he'd no idea she was interested in him at all.

"What are you doing?" he asked her as she drew off first his shoe and then his sock.

"I need to borrow this," she explained, jumping up and opening the door, where she looped the sock around the handle.

"Do you know what this means?" she asked, pointing to it.

"Yes. It means 'F…fornication in progress. Do not disturb." He replied, lowering his book.

"Uh-huh. And I don't want to make a liar out of your sock," she closed the door, locked it, and hopped over her study materials to reach inside her purse, drawing out a condom. "So out of those clothes, Victor Fries."

He had been a virgin. She was not, which frankly was all for the best because if he knew there would be blood, that he could not help but hurt her….He had thought it would be furtive, shameful, guilt ridden, but she had taught him that love could lay down with laughter, that it wasn't just pleasurable, but fun.

His smile dimmed. They would never lie together naked again, nor even simply share a bed. _That_ was impossible. But, thanks to certain developments, there were…alternatives. There was more to love and much more to marriage than sex.

Nora stirred, took a deep breath. "Vuh—Vuh-iictor?" she said.

"I'm here, darling. I've been here all along," which was true in the only meaningful way.

"Is it…is it ovver?" she asked slurring the words, squeezing her eyes tight, then blinking.

"Yes. It is. You're well again."

"Oh. Good. C'n I have a sip a watter?"

"Yes. Open your mouth…Here's the straw, do you feel it?"

"Yes. Fanks…" she sipped greedily from the cup as he held it for her.

"Heh, your hand feelz funny." She let the straw slip from her lips.

"I'm wearing gloves."

"Tha's it, then." She opened her eyes and looked at him for the first time. "Vict'r….wha' happened? You look so…."

There were many things she could have said in justice. 'Bald'. 'Blue' 'Mad-Scientisty' were all true and equally valid. What she did say, however, broke his heart, turned his stomach into a bowling ball and his veins to water.

"…**old."**

_This will be a disaster_, he thought.

Time had held still for her for the last three decades.

But not for him.

* * *

According to the Arkham Wiki, Nora Fries suffers from Huntington's Disease, so I went with that.

Incidentally, if you haven't yet read Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain by Richard Roberts, you absolutely should. (Check it out on Amazon, right _**now.**_)

Last, I will be very happy for any comments and or constructive criticism you care to offer. Thank you.


	3. Tim, Yukie: The Uncanny Valley

Tim Drake had no idea why he was there. Sure, Batman and Robin had fought Mr. Freeze plenty of times in the past, that was years ago and, more importantly, he wasn't Robin then. Freeze had been reformed for years now, and he, Tim, understood that Bruce wanted to be there when Nora Fries woke up as a way of closing the books for once and for all—but he was bored out of his skull.

Batman had explained a few things on the way there, "Victor Fries was never a threat on the same scale as Joker or Zsasz, but his genius as an inventor combined with the desperation that drove him made him formidable. He only committed crimes when he needed money to continue his research or when his wife was threatened."

"How do you threaten a woman who's a corpsicle in a freezer?" Tim asked offhanded.

"You threaten to turn off the power," his mentor explained. "He could be vicious, but never without what he perceived as cause, such as betrayal, and he rarely hurt innocent bystanders beyond giving them hypothermia or mild frostbite. However, he also sold cryoweapons to whoever wanted them. Like all weapons manufacturers, he didn't care what people did with his products once they left his hands."

"Okay, that's bad. So-what happened? What made him change? The recidivism among Rogues is practically one hundred percent." Tim asked.

" As long as he confined himself to research, I was willing to leave him alone. Since no new cryoweapons were hitting the market, I turned my attention to more immediate threats, and several years went by before I thought to check up on him. I discovered he had built a new facility on the north side of the bay, so one night I paid him a visit.

"He said his research was progressing well, and since he had sold several of his patents with potential commercial applications, he had no pressing financial concerns. I didn't believe him, but when Lucius Fox looked into it for me, he discovered that a major food conglomerate was now using a patented Fries method of preventing freezer burn and a Japanese corporation had purchased the rights to some sort of remote sensor. The deals included percentages of the gross and stock dividends meaning that if the products make money for the company, they make money for Fries as well. Enough to complete the cure for Huntington's. Enough to save his wife. As Bruce Wayne, I made arrangements for clinical trials and otherwise smoothed the path for him. It seemed the least I could do."

Now they were all sitting in the waiting room, and Tim was still bored. Bruce was talking to Freeze's assistant, a woman about thirty years old. She was good-looking, he guessed, but a little weird. For one thing, she looked like she never sweated, and for another, she moved like somebody who had their reflexes and speed juiced up past the point where they could still move normally.

"Hi. I'm Bruce Wayne."

She smiled. "Yes, I know. I'm Yukime Kuwano. Please allow me to thank you for the help and support you have given Doctor Fries. I know that without your influence and intervention the scientific community would not have given his research serious consideration." She made a brief bow.

"You don't have to thank me. Whatever contribution I made is nothing compared to–well," He gestured to Nora Fries' room. "But anyhow, how can you possibly have been his assistant for the last twelve years? What did he do, recruit you straight out of middle school?"

_Twelve years? And she has enhanced reflexes. Yet we haven't come across her until now. Either she doesn't fight, or she has wicked superstealth moves._

She smiled again. Her English was pretty much perfect, but she had the trace of an accent and she spoke like somebody who had learned English instead of growing up speaking it. "You are very kind, but I am older than I look to most Americans. There is no great secret to it. I eat a great deal of brown rice, steamed vegetables and a little fish, drink plenty of green tea, and avoid sun exposure. I even use a parasol when I go out of doors."

"Well, whatever you're doing, it's working. How did you wind up working for him? I'm sure it's a fascinating story."

Put together, Yukime Kuwano reminded Tim of something one of his science teachers had said about humanoid robots: that when something was too human looking but not human enough, it fell into the 'Uncanny Valley' and creeped people out. It wasn't just robots that could do it—so could dolls, puppets, and clowns. Plus if you lived anywhere near where you could run into Joker or Harley Quinn, it was a sure bet that clowns creeped you out.

"It is not easily explained" she said, not looking at Bruce, but at Fries as he held his wife's hand. "I was newly arrived in Gotham City, without friends here or resources. I will not trouble you with the tale of how I came to be so, but being so, I was still better off than where I was. One day I saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a clinical study of a new experimental medication for people with symptoms like mine. They wanted healthy volunteers to undergo a two week stay while undergoing the trial. Room, board, and financial compensation would be provided. I did not know enough about America or about how such studies are usually conducted to be suspicious."

Tim pretended to still be preoccupied with his phone, while eavesdropping for all he was worth_. _

_Wow. She was very lucky. Gotham usually grinds up people that naive for hamburger_. _Her guardian angels must have put in for overtime that week._

"That… could have been very dangerous for you," Batman replied. "Didn't you want to run when you found out a…well, there's no other way of putting it, a supervillain, because he was one then, was conducting it?"

"I was very close to being homeless, and although we have strange events, phenomena and people in Japan, they're very different than Gotham City. For example, giant reptiles coming out of the harbor, towns which undergo a forty-five degree dimensional shift and cannot be reached, a suburb of Tokyo which is now walled off and uninhabited due to ghosts. They kept killing people on about the same scale as the Joker here. Even burning down the original house did not end it. The curse spread like a terrible virus."

_Well, I'd heard Japan was different. This proves it._

"Ghosts?" he scoffed lightly.

"People who didn't die or stop existing as they should have, then. People who transformed. Like Poison Ivy, or even like Doctor Fries. Stranger things happen. To return to my tale, I answered the advertisement and met Doctor Fries. He was brusque but not unkind, and explained what the medicine was intended to do and why. He took my medical history, did scans, tested tissue samples, and paid me in advance. I took the medications, and nothing happened. Doctor Fries lost interest in me. When the two weeks had elapsed, I expected to be told to leave, but," she shrugged, "no one told me to go, no one demanded my room or barred me from meals and since I had nowhere else to go, I stayed.

"Since I was eating the doctor's rice, I began to work for it, cleaning things and organizing the storeroom, working at night and when no one was around. He had some henchmen at the time but they were quite unmotivated and lacked initiative, except when it came to damaging things." She reflected a moment, "And damaging people as well, so there was a great deal of work to be done. This went on for some time until the henchmen undid work it had taken me hours to finish, not out of carelessness or by accident, but because they thought it was amusing. Then I—what is the phrase?—went off on them.

"The shouting drew Doctor Fries' attention, which was the last thing I wanted, but there he was. When he understood what the problem was, he asked me what I did around there, and after I told him he asked what I was paid. I told him I wasn't, I just needed a place to stay. Then he asked the ringleader what _he_ did, and what he was paid. He looked back at me, and said, 'You get that, double, retroactive to when you got here. You,' to the ringleader, 'Get out. The rest of you can either clear this up to her satisfaction or you can follow him.' That was how I officially entered his employ, and since then I have gradually assumed more responsibilities. As to what exactly I do—I simply do what I see needs to be done."

_Batman always said Mr. Freeze wasn't an evil man and his story was more tragic than anything else. I'm glad he's right. We could use a win for once._

"But then—that means you were working for him back when he was still committing crimes," Batman pointed out. "Obviously it all worked out eventually," he gestured to the observation window, "but surely it isn't what you went to school for."

"What I went to school for," she repeated, and her friendly demeanor chilled a few degrees. "I studied finance at Tokyo University, and I graduated in the top ten percent of my class. Would you like to know what my last job in Japan was, before I came to Gotham City?" She continued without waiting for a reply.

_A little anger still there, ya think?_

"I worked in a factory packing take-away lunch boxes for convenience stores. You see, Mr. Wayne, not only does a woman with a disability not fit corporate images, my particular disability ah—'creeps people out.' I do not believe Doctor Fries has ever noticed that I am creepy, and if he has, he doesn't care. Oh!"

She was staring at the window, where Nora's lips were moving, her hand tightening in Victor's. Glancing at the action within, he looked back at Yukie. She was smiling.

Tim thought of the smile on paintings of the Virgin Mary, as she cuddled her son. Bruce's family had a couple of Madonna And Child paintings by Raphael hanging in the library. That was the smile on Yukime Kuwano's face now, sweet and tender, yet heartbreaking too. At that moment, Tim had no idea how important she would turn out to be to the future of the Titans, and to one Titan in particular, but the feeling in that smile reached him and impressed him.

_She isn't creepy after all,_ he thought._ She's just kind of stone faced around strangers._

"I don't feel right watching this," she said abruptly, rising to her feet and taking whatever it was that Fries gave her. "It's too like voyeurism. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Wayne, and you are a very good listener. I thank you again, but I—I must go."

Ever a gentleman, Bruce stood up, and watching them, Tim missed the moment when the smile on Victor Fries' face slipped and shattered into a thousand pieces…

Once outside the clinic and on the sidewalk, Yukie shifted the cryounit to her hip as she pulled out her phone and speed dialed a particular number. "Hello, Slade? It's Yukie. Do you have any commitments for eight weeks beginning after, um, the ninth of next month? If not, I should like to take you to Japan with me. I warn you, I can either pay your fee or pay for the trip, not both. You are too expensive as a gigolo," her voice had a laugh in it. "Call me when you get a chance. Good-bye."


	4. Nora Fries: Upon Waking

Victor recoiled as though she had struck him.

"I'm sorry!" Nora cried out, (although it came out sounding more like 'Ahm sawwy'), "Wha's wrong?"

"Finding the cure took… a long time," he said, simply. "And there were…unforeseen complications."

Whatever those unforeseen complications were, they had to be bad. "How long?"

"It's the year 2013," her husband admitted.

It was not possible. It simply wasn't. Yesterday it had been 1984, and she and Victor were only thirty-two, with all the best part of their lives yet to come, their own home and their children and the Nobel Prize and… Anyhow, he _couldn't_ be sixty-two, that was older than her _father_, and he didn't look more than fifty or so and she wouldn't_ let_ him be that old, and...

Wrenching her mind away from that spiral down into hysteria, she instead forced a bright smile on her face and a cheerful tone into her voice, as she had so often done during her illness, and said, "Wow, 2013—I guess that means we're all living in the future now? Are there flying cars now and robot maids, like on 'The Jetsons'?"

"Flying cars? Only a few, and their use is mainly restricted to costumed adventurers. Frankly, the average American driver is dangerous enough at ground level without adding the ability to leave the ground. Robot maids? No. The few robots intended for household use are small, simple devices. Self-propelling vacuum cleaners, for example. The real developments have been in the world of computers," Victor explained, in his element now.

Talking about science had always been so much easier for him, which made all forms of social interaction awkward, but she'd loved him all the more for being so sweet and goofy and clueless and _him_. He'd been this nutty professor in training—except he wasn't in training anymore.

"You'll recall how huge the mainframe supercomputer at the University was, how it occupied several rooms. At that time, we were only just beginning to form a computer network among similar institutions to share information. These days, a device with hundreds of times the memory, the processing power, and the speed of that mainframe is small enough to hold in your hand. Not to mention that it can also take pictures and send text messages around the world. Here, in your bedside table—this is for you. It's loaded with a tutorial program to teach you how to use it. "

He pulled open a drawer, removed a slim box, and handed it to her. "Apple I-Pad Air," she read, looking at the package. "16 GB—uh, wow. I have no idea what all that means, but—where are my mom and dad? And Michelle?"

Wrong thing to ask. "Your father died in 1997, your mother in 2001. Your sister Michelle was invited, but she was skeptical about the chances of success, and she and I have not kept in touch over the years. I'm sure if you contact her yourself..." He let it trail off.

"Oh. Okay." Brightness, lighthearted, smiling. Victor hurt so much already, she could _see _that, and she would not, could not make it worse for him. "So—tell me more about the world of 2013. I guess the Soviets never dropped the bomb. What else has happened?"

"There is no Soviet Union any longer. In 1991, it dissolved back into separate countries. The world still has problems, however—neither notably better nor worse, simply different. China has risen in prominence and power, but their base is economic rather than military. The current President of the United States is Barack Obama—.

She interrupted with a laugh. "_Barack Obama_? What kind of a name is _that_?"

"African-American." Victor replied.

"African-Ame—are you saying the_ President_, _the_ President of _the_ United States, is_ black_?"

"Yes. He is."

"That's—." What could she say? If all black people were like the family on The Cosby Show, that would be fine, but…

Nora was not racist; she was simply unaccustomed to diversity. The world of ballet being what it was, the domain of the upper and upper middle classes, who could afford both expensive lessons and expensive season tickets, had, back in 1984, been predominantly white. So had the college and university she attended. Thirty years of cultural change had happened while she slept in the ice.

"—uh, well, if he's a good president, then that's what matters, right?"

"I would say he was an adequate president. Nora, I appreciate that you are trying to put the best face on things that you can, but there's something I have to tell you. Please stop for a moment, and let me try to explain. This is very difficult and painful—."

_Please,_ she prayed. _Let him say he has a wife and kids. Let him have had some __**happiness**__, because I __**know**__ him and I __**know **__he could just have retreated from the world and done nothing but work on a cure. If this is real…if this isn't some freezer dream I'm having, if it's __**been**__ thirty years and he gave up __**his whole life**__…I can't bear it. I just can't_.

"Is there—someone else?" she asked, hoping the answer was yes.

"Of course not," he said, sounding surprised and even a little offended. "You're the only woman I have ever looked at with love."

"I didn't mean—I mean, thirty years, that's a long time."

"Never." He vowed, then sighed. "If it were only that simple. You've noticed the suit I'm wearing, of course."

"Yeah, it's—kind of hard to miss. I figured I was like the boy in the bubble right now, and you couldn't risk exposing me to germs. The glass or whatever it is in the helmet makes you look blue, did you know that?" She tried to smile when she said that, but all her face could manage was a weak twitch.

"It's not the glass. You see, some years ago, I accepted an employment offer from Gothcorp, with the personal guarantee of its president, Ferris Boyle," he said the name with a snarl, as if it were a curse, "that I would have the resources and time to work on a cure for you. Instead, he reneged, and when I continued despite his objections, he threatened to depower your cryopod. We fought, and there was an accident—no, not an accident. Boyle tried to kill me by throwing me into my chemicals, and my metabolism was affected. Permanently affected. My natural body temperature is now well below the freezing point of saltwater. Without this suit, I would be extremely uncomfortable in here; without the diffusion pump which is installed in the region of my heart and a constant feed of cryochemicals, I would die of hyperthermia—heatstroke—in minutes."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "That isn't possible. It's not _true_, this isn't _real_, I won't_** let**_ it be real—."

"Nora!" he cried out. "Please! This is torture enough as it is."

"I don't believe it," she made an effort to rein in her emotions. "That k-kind of thing doesn't happen to real people."

"I assure you, it does." His voice was weary, so very weary.

"Prove it, then," she said, stubborn.

"Very well," he breathed, doing something to his glove at the wrist, and drawing it off. As his skin was exposed to the air, frost started forming on it, like on the outside of a pint of ice cream fresh out of the freezer. He reached out for the pitcher of water on the nightstand, stuck one finger in it, and it solidified immediately. She could _feel_ the wave of cold coming off his skin.

"Oh, God," she whispered. Her heart ached with sympathetic pain. "Oh, Victor. How can you stand it? And to go on for _years _like this…"

"You," he replied. "The sure and certain knowledge that if I were to die or give up, no one else would ever bother to revive you even when there was a cure. The thought of you sustained me."

"Oh, Victor." Where were all her words, where were her feelings? Everything was very remote and faraway.

"It's all right, my darling," he said, even as he pulled the glove back on. "It was very difficult at first, in many ways, but it is…a livable condition. I may as well tell you the rest. I will never be able to father a child, not even through artificial insemination or in vitro. My seminal fluid contains no motile spermatozoa. There have, however, been tremendous advances in genetic engineering, and—."

He had stopped because she was laughing and couldn't stop. "That is _so_ you, Victor! Nobody else I ever met, nobody else in the _world_ would put it like that. Even our professors would have just come out and said, 'My sperm are all dead.'" Then everything became very weird and woozy because Victor had called the nurse, who came and gave her a sedative.

When she was calm again, he told her, "I'll leave you now so you can rest, but I want you to know I will give you your freedom. No judge would hesitate to grant you a divorce under these circumstances. Fortunately I am quite well off these days, and of course half my assets are yours. You won't have to worry."

"I don't want a divorce," she said. "There's a whole long list of things I want, and a divorce isn't anywhere near the top. I want my parents. I want to go back to sleep and never wake up. I want all of this to never, never have happened. I want to stop hurting. But I do love you, Victor, and, and…don't leave me alone here in the future." All else was lost in the arms of the drug.

* * *

A/N: So why is there so much about Nora and Victor Fries in the story? I promise it will all connect up eventually.

Ah, and to my loyal reviewers Swordstitcher, Riksie-Dixie, Tev, and Bat-teen28, my sincerest thanks.


	5. Slade: Intimacies

A/N: This chapter assumes you know what two happily consenting adults might get up to in a hotel room without going into specific details.

* * *

Sometime the next day:

Slade Wilson got out of the taxi in front of the Imperial Hotel, glancing up at the winter sky as he hefted his overnight bag. Yukie had suggested the rendezvous, so she also chose the place. _Rm. 1625 Imperial_, she had texted, and here he was.

On the face of it, their liaison was exactly what all men supposedly want and women supposedly do not—no-strings-attached sex without demands—outside of the bedroom, that was. Yet he—his divorced wife dead, his surviving children estranged, the closest thing he had to a friend dead also—had nothing else in his life approaching a relationship. He might not even have permitted himself that, once the initial attraction was sated, but she did fill a deeper need than just the physical. They had been seeing each other for more than two years now.

Entering the cool modern lobby, he ignored the doorman and maitre d'hôtel, heading directly for the elevator. Yukie met him at the door in a long white robe. "Shower first?" she suggested, smiling. She was not seductive in any conventional way, and definitely did not fit any of the fetishized images Western men had of Asian women—she was too strange for that, too individual. Yet she held definite attractions for him, not least of which was his eventual plan for her. It was a shame about her weakness to heat, but as he had no intention of taking her out in the field, it didn't matter.

"Certainly," he replied. Two adults who knew each other well, and knew what to do for each other— after the shower, and what went on in there, and then in the bedroom, (enhanced strength and stamina came with distinct advantages, especially when a man was over fifty),Yukie laughed, low and throaty, and they rolled apart. Their exertions had brought a rose-pink flush to her face and other places which was very becoming.

"So," he said, reaching for the whiskey she had thoughtfully placed on the bedside table, and pouring each of them a splash, "what is that Freeze has going in Japan?"

"Nothing," she said, taking the glass from his hand. "The terms of our bargain were fulfilled as of yesterday afternoon. Nora Fries is alive, awake, and cured, and I have been compensated."

"Is she, now? I didn't know that was the deal between you." He propped himself up on one elbow. "What did you get, after twelve years?"

"That is between him and me," she answered. "But the end is an amiable one. I am not running off immediately. That would be irresponsible and rude. I do not believe Doctor Fries truly understands how much I took on over the years, so I shall stay long enough to put all in order and leave detailed notes."

"I imagine he is ecstatic," Slade commented.

"Would not anyone be, to see the work of thirty years come to fruition?" she countered.

"An answer that isn't an answer—how like you. Is he going to have anything to _live_ on now? For that matter, are _you_?"

"Now that is a matter of public record and I do not mind talking about it. There will be income from various patents, of which my share is twenty percent. Most of them will mean little to you as they are only one step in a manufacturing process, but the most profitable is Sensorskin.®"

"Sensorskin®?" He sat up, the better to stare at her. "You mean the stuff they make those sex suits out of? Victor Fries, the man who spent over thirty years in faithful chastity to a cryocorpse invented _the_ way to have sex without bodily contact? _That _casts a whole new light upon his character."

About four years earlier, the Itachi Corporation, well known manufacturer of erotic devices, had debuted an entirely new product line, garments (and other things) made of materials coated with a pseudofluid called Sensorskin® which both transmitted and received tactile sensations—in other words, the sense of touch, excluding the sensation of temperature. Ranging from the minimalist glove and swimsuit sets all the way up to full-body suits with all the accessories including virtual reality visors and priced accordingly, the suits had suddenly made it possible to have remote sex without touching, without meeting face-to-face, without even knowing the gender of the other party, and most especially, without risk of pregnancy or disease.

For those for whom even that was too much like a relationship, they could also be programmed. Furthermore, they were even washable, an extremely important feature given the use to which they were put, but they didn't last very long—the psuedofluid deteriorated within three to six months depending on method of washing and frequency of use.

The suits were exactly as popular and exactly as controversial as one would expect. Itachi shot up into the ranks of Starbucks and Microsoft, and sales were only improving with no end in sight.

"He did not invent it with that purpose in mind, and it is also used for artificial limbs. He only wanted better perception when he had on gloves. My role was to come up with commercial applications, research the market, and broker the best deal possible. I saw the potential in Sensorskin® and chose to offer it to Itachi rather than an American corporation not because I am nationalistic but because Americans are still rather hypocritical when it comes to sex," she explained. "The country of my birth is not. After all, we invented both tentacle porn and the used panty vending machine."

That drew a belly laugh out of the stone-hearted killer for hire. "Does Freeze know what his invention is being used for?"

"Yes," Yukie replied after a silent but eloquent moment in which her face said quite clearly, 'Yes, and he nearly combusted out of sheer embarrassment.'

"Have you ever used one of those suits?"

"Why would I need to?" she asked in reply, drawing her toes up along his calf. "In truth, no. I have not used it for sex. Lab work is another matter."

"Has he explored the more recreational uses?" Wilson referred to Fries.

"Even if I knew I would not say," she answered primly.

"Well, he ought to. It's the only way he'd ever be able to touch his wife again. Tell me, is the three-to-six month lifespan real, or is it by design to keep the money rolling in?"

"The receptors gradually degrade upon contact with moisture," she said, "but they are not looking very hard for a solution to the problem."

"I'll bet they're not! Wait a moment—even if you and he are only getting a fraction of what Itachi makes, you must be pulling in a fortune. Why then were you competing for the prize at Cobblepot's the night we met?"

Again the pensive look as she worked out what to tell him, and then, "You could easily find this out from the Penguin himself, so I will tell you. There was so much owed to Mr. Cobblepot and several others that every month I despaired of scraping together enough to cover the interest. You can imagine upon what terms they offered credit. To wipe out the entire debt at once was worth the risk."

"You could have been killed. You nearly were."

"That would have been inconvenient, true. But I was not and I won."

"Freeze wasn't there," he remembered, sitting up. "Did he know what you were doing that night?"

"I…chose not to tell him. It would have reflected badly on my ability to handle his finances."

"Does he know now?"

"If he does, he has never shown any sign of it."

Wilson shook his head, regarding his lover. "You're a well of secrets…So, if this trip to Japan has nothing to do with him, then what is it about? And why go in January?"

"For the off-season rates," she shrugged. "I have long planned to return there for reasons of my own, and I asked you simply for the pleasure of your company. There is no 'work' involved for you. We have never done anything of the kind, after all. You need not worry that I mean to make a show of you to my family and friends. I have no friends there, and my family cast me off long ago."

"Why? What happened?" This was more than he had learned of her in two years; she never volunteered information about herself.

"I was born flawed, I never became socially presentable no matter how much money and instruction was spent upon me, I couldn't hold on to my husband or give them grandchildren at that time, and I couldn't find work in keeping with my family's position in the community," she said, finishing her whisky in one swallow. "They were as relieved I chose to emigrate as I was."

"So you're divorced?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, "but I don't want to bore you with the tale."

"I'm not bored," he reached over to stroke her cheek, curve the corner of her mouth. Her skin was velvet.

"I met him on a miai," she said, her gaze unfocusing to look into the past. "You're fluent in my language. Do you know the word? No? It's very old-fashioned now. Only losers resort to miai, these days. If you know you want to marry but you are not socially adept, you go to a matchmaker to meet someone of like mind. They, ah, 'fix you up' with prospective spouses—this is not to meet someone with whom you can fall in love. It is to meet someone you can tolerate.

"His family had been brewing sake, real sake,_ good_ sake, in the traditional way for nearly three hundred years, small batches, by hand. Most sake in Japan these days is very bad—full of preservatives and additives, enriched with pure alcohol and then watered down again. The big companies like it because they can get three times as much sake out of the same amount of rice. But he wanted to expand, to keep making good sake but with modern technology. I liked his passion and enthusiasm. He liked that my family was prepared to invest in his company to see me settled. You might say I was marrying his business and he was marrying my money.

"Three years later, he lost patience. The profits were respectable but not large enough for him. He wanted to exploit the brand name by doing as the national brands do, tripling output at the expense of quality. I refused to let him do that, because he could not compete on their level and there was no surer way to ruin the business entirely. He said that I was not only barren, I was emasculating him and so he was divorcing me. I had had quite enough of him by then, and would have been glad to see the last of him, until I found out about the girl who was to be his second wife."

She paused, and he prompted, "A friend of yours?"

"My younger sister. She was twenty. That was how he avoided trouble with my family over the money. They pressured her into agreeing."

"That had to have hurt." _Her family must have put up a __**great**__ deal of money-yet it seems there ought to be more to it than that. Yet Yukie believes it. _

"Not because she was replacing me. We were very close. I was a terrible disappointment and an embarrassment to everyone else in the family—father, mother, brother—only she and my grandmother had any affection for me. So I had ruined my own life by bringing that idiot into the family? That was no reason to ruin hers, too. But they married, and within five years, the brewery was no more. They stayed married, though, and have four children now. They kept at it until they got a boy. I—'creep' her on social media, so that is how I know. I have no contact with them otherwise."

"You don't think they would be impressed by how you turned out?" Whatever she had been like when she was younger, Yukie was now sophisticated, cultured, resourceful and utterly calm even when under fire (their dates were sometimes quite exciting), surely qualities any family would appreciate.

"I didn't accomplish anything in Japan, so it doesn't count…Do you think you can come with me?" she asked, a touch of wistfulness in her voice.

He considered it. "I might be able to arrange some work for myself while we're there. You won't be bothered should I disappear for a few hours here and there?"

"Not at all. I am sure there are times I will want time alone," she replied.

"Good. Give me a few days, and I'll give you a more definite answer. What are these reasons of your own, if not to see friends and family?"

She settled in against him, spooning. "I am going in search of ghosts, supernatural beings, and haunted places. There are plenty to choose from in Japan, and my whole itinerary is planned around my quest."

"You mean to say you believe in ghosts?"

"**_There_**, that is one major cultural difference between us. There are many stranger things in this world, and you scoff at ghosts. No, I do _not_ believe in ghosts, no more than I believe in this bed we're lying on. They exist, whether one believes in them or not."

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much, Riksy-Dixie, SwordStitcher, and Tev!


	6. Yukie: Jian Wu

_He fights sleep the way he fights any other enemy_, Yukie thought, looking at her sleeping lover. The difference was that sleep always won sooner or later, and it would be better for him if he were beaten by it more often. The human brain wasn't meant to function at ninety percent capacity all the time, neurons firing like sparks in a blast furnace; he needed downtime more than most people.

It wasn't until their fifth or sixth tryst that Slade allowed himself to fall asleep in the same room with her, and even then he nearly shot her when she got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, that first time. Nowadays he didn't stir so much as a finger should she get up and walk around the room, although he still slept with one hand always on a weapon, automatically switching hands when he happened to roll over in bed, still fast asleep. She wondered if he slept that way at home, if he thought of any place as home, and suspected it didn't matter where he was or who he was with.

She did not know if she was the only person he was sleeping with, in either sense of the word, but she did know that between the two senses, sex and sleep, the latter was the deeper intimacy for him.

In sleep that harshly handsome face was still grim. It only softened a little when he laughed, for that moment, and set again immediately. She smiled, remembering the first time she made him laugh, early on. She asked him, quite seriously, if he minded that she was just using him for sex.

The _look_ on his face was beyond words before he laughed and replied, "Be my guest!" She didn't think he realized what a relief it was to her that he left and went home, leaving her to think her own thoughts and live her own life without all the work that went into a relationship. What there was between them was so simple, so easy-going that it hardly seemed real to her.

He'd thrown the covers partly off, and the ambient light of a downtown Gotham night silvered the shiny patches of scar tissue here and there—no new ones anywhere, and she had had a good look. She was glad he hadn't been injured again. He was a man whose life story was written on his body. The eye patch lay on the bedside table—was it possible the lid drooped less? A parting gift from his late ex-wife, he'd said, and told her the eye might regenerate if he lived long enough.(Unspoken was the implication that he would not.)

But if the late Adeline Kane Wilson had marked him, so too had Yukie. The scar where she had come close to cutting off his ear still remained as well, but in turn she still bore the line on her throat.

_What a way to meet_…

Waiting in line outside the defunct steel mill in the near dark, she looked around at the others. She was perfectly comfortable with the frigid wind of a late October night gusting around her, tugging at her furisode sleeves like a persistent little sister, but most of her fellow competitors looked bitten to the bone. Perhaps it was apprehension, not the cold—entirely the wrong state of mind to bring to this contest. Another fighter entered the side door, and they all shuffled forward a few paces.

This was the night of the World Annual Jian Wu competition, held for the first time ever in Gotham City. While Jian Wu was a recognized martial arts school, matches using real blades were illegal in every country on Earth that had ever heard of the practice. Hence this surreptitious, secretive match.

Most of the eighty-odd fighters in line were men—three quarters to four-fifths, she estimated. Was she the only one who brought her own drummer? Tommy Chen stood by his diminutive grandmother, who had come along to act as her attendant, carrying bandages, towels and cold-packs. There were specific rules about attire and weapons allowed for Jian Wu—no protective gear or armor, blades to be no shorter than the length of their wielder's forearm or twelve inches, whichever was longer, and no longer than the length of the arm from pit to wrist or three feet, whichever was shorter. Consequently a number of those assembled were either wearing singlets or completely bare-chested, fooled by the day's balmy temperature.

Given that most were men, as she had already observed, and that almost to a man they were extremely well built, whether bulky or lean muscled, the view was quite pleasing to her eyes. If only they were less goose-pimpled…

Another fighter entered, another yard's progress. She checked her swords again. Butterfly swords, they were called here. They were both shorter and wider than the typical Jian blade, but better suited to her arm length. Some people preferred a quillion that would only trap an opposing blade, but she liked to be able to flip the blade, laying the blunt edge against her forearm to strike with a forward elbow. That was especially good when fighting in close against an opponent of greater height, as most men were.

_Enough_, she told herself. _My swords are the best I could afford. They are well within the regulations and they will serve_. _Fidgeting does me no good and makes me conspicuous_. That had been the whole point of all the years of training.

The doctors had told her parents that it was possible she might outgrow the jerky little movements she made, especially if she developed a high degree of coordination, so from earliest childhood she had taken dance and martial arts, throwing herself into them in the hope of wringing a nod and a kind word from her father, a hug from her mother. Then it was with the determination to conquer her affliction, to be just like everyone else. Implicit in all of this was that if she couldn't control it, then it was because she just wasn't working hard enough, she was lazy, she liked the attention. She wanted to make them all as miserable as she was herself…

The line moved forward a few paces more. The training worked to the extent that she learned how to hold completely still, that she could move with a degree of grace. It worked to the extent where she won regional competitions for Jian Wu—the legal version fought with blunt wood swords. She might have gone further in the sport had it not been for her other medical issue, the inability to perspire. Strenuous activity also raised the body temperature, after all. No one wanted a team mate who had to be baby-sat.

She would not be there were it not for the debt. Fight nights at Cobblepot's were usually no-holds-barred melees—nasty, dirty, and crude, much like the participants. Combatants went in knowing they could potentially be maimed, crippled, even killed, but they went in all the same—that was part of the fun. Needless to say, they were highly illegal as well, so part of the entry fees went to pay off the authorities.

Sometimes, however, he played host to a special match. On those occasions the entry fee went up much higher, but the event attracted a much better class of spectator as well as participant. Ordinarily Yukie would have been no more interested in attending, much less participating, than she would be in lancing someone's seborrheic boil, no matter how large the prize was, but since it was Jian Wu, there she was.

Another fighter in the door, and she was next. Squinting her eyes against the sudden flare of light, she went in to register.

Deirdre, the Penguin's current assistant, was first behind the desk. "Fighting alias?" she asked, not looking up, and snapped her gum.

"Yuki-Onna," she said.

Hearing a familiar voice, Deirdre looked up. "Yukie? Whatta you doin' here?"

"I'm entering the match," she replied.

"Since when are you a fightah?"

"I've trained in Jian Wu since I was in elementary school, and you know the extent of the debt."

"So you're doin' this for Freeze? Yer otta yer mind! Look, you're a good kid. The entry fee's the same whether you're going in as a spectatah or a fightah. Go back out, come in the other way, get yerself a seat, place a few bets, have fun. You look real nice in that kimono and the doodads in your hair, nobody'll give ya a second look." Deirdre pleaded.

"I am here for the Sword Dance," she told the woman firmly. "Yuki-Onna." She spelled it out.

"Okay, it's your funeral," Deirdre conceded. "Whazzat mean? I don't need it for entry, I'm just curious."

"It's a supernatural being, a snow spirit. She entices men to their deaths in the snow."

"Gotcha. Next of kin?" She punctuated the sentence with another snap of gum.

"Put down Doctor Fries, please."

"Okay…Any enhancements, powers, stuff like that? Use of any ya don't declare is an automatic disqualification, and using flight or levitation is, too."

"Augmented speed and reflexes," she said. After her disastrous marriage, she did a desperate thing. With her settlement money, she went to Thailand, where, it was said, there were clinics that could give _anyone_ powers, even if they didn't have the meta gene. Not flight, no. Flying was beyond their ability to give. But strength was a matter of muscle tissue, reflexes depended on nerve fibers, and intellect on neurotransmitters. For the equivalent of fifty thousand dollars, she bought a vial of sticky, resinous liquid, gulped it down in the back room of a place in which she would not have kenneled a dog.

It worked, after a fashion, but it did nothing to cure what was now called 'mild ataxia due to cerebellar hypoplasia'. The ability to move faster, leap higher—all overheated her even faster.

"Alll right…" Deirdre drew out the words. "How many people ya killed, lifetime total?"

"None. My school emphasized maiming over killing."

Deirdre groaned. "I can still rip up the sheet."

"Excuse me," the sword inspector in the next chair leaned over. "The hour grows old, many still wait to enter, and if your friend cannot make it through the six elimination rounds then she will be in no danger from anyone but herself. If she can attain the seventh level, she deserves to be there."

"Okay," Deirdre contented herself with one last frown. "Ever participated in the World Championship before?"

"No."

"The entry fee is one hundred thousand US currency, cash only." Silently Yukie passed over the bulky envelope with one thousand one hundred dollar bills. The assistant could count money practically at a glance. "All there, all right. Good luck, girl."

"Your swords," the sword inspector requested. "Hudiedao," he said, calling them by their name in Mandarin. "Carbon steel, hybrid-style blades twelve and a half inches long. Weight…" He went on to perform several tests, including swabbing the blades for toxins and inspecting the hilts for spring-loaded spikes. Finally he handed them back, saying, "Any alterations made to these blades between now and the end of the match, including sharpening or swapping for uninspected blades, will be grounds for immediate disqualification. Good luck."

The next station took a drop of blood for analysis, pronouncing her to be 'Not nonhuman,' (apparently the standard way of putting it) before sending her to the next, where they checked her clothing and gear for contraband. "Use of mechanisms or gadgetry will be grounds for immediate disqualification," she was warned. Eventually she was allowed through into the waiting area.

Allegiances among the Rogues' Gallery of Gotham City shifted like the sands on a beach; for this event, the Penguin had arranged to use the Sionis steel mill, no longer in active production. The loading dock had been converted into a ring for the occasion, as it had a lower floor in the center and elevated sides. Now the sides had stadium seating protected by Plexiglas splash shields, lest the spectators wind up with severed fingers in their laps and blood on their designer clothes. Up above, the supervisor's office was the VIP area, from which the judges would scrutinize every move made.

Looking around at her fellow dancers, she counted fourteen other women and more than forty men. She had been somewhere around the sixtieth in line. Already there was a distinct odor of masculinity in the room, heavy in the air, and since most men with pretentions in the martial arts were on high-protein mea- based diets, it was not the most pleasant smell in the world—flatulence and meat grease mixed with sweat.

One man paced the room like a zoo animal gone made with caging. "How come there's so many gashes entered in this?" he suddenly asked of the room.

Yukie, for whom English was a third language, had no idea what he meant by 'gash', but someone else explained in his response, "Jian Wu makes no distinctions in rank, gender, race, nationality or faith. All that matters is the dance. Smaller mass and suppleness can more than compensate for strength and bulk. Last year's world champion, also world champion four times over the last decade, is Lady Shiva. She is _also_ one of the judges this evening."

"Uh,' mumbled the pacer. "Whadda know?" The other fighters exchanged a glance which said, 'He'll be lucky if he passes the first round.'

So 'gash' was crude, derogatory slang for a woman. She must remember that. Misogyny, even here. A number of the female competitors were wearing garb that looked like some fetishist's idea of a ninja, lasciviously tight halter tops and leggings, tiny face masks, and tattoos to rival the Yakusa. The other women wore even less. Under the furisode, which she would shed before the match started, she was dressed in a modest white tunic over an opaque sports bra and knee length leggings, all of it selected for ease of movement, not display.

No one likes to be the only one at the party who dressed all wrong. How was her gender to escape objectification if they participated in it? On the other hand, the men were doing a decent job of objectifying themselves as well. There was more meat on display than in a butcher shop. Suddenly the room seemed even more stifling.

"Excuse me," Yukie said to her drummer and his grandmother. "I must go and place my bets."

She followed a trail of crude paper signs to the on-site betting office, passing several of Penguin's men in the halls.

"Whozat?" she heard one whisper to another.

"She henches for Freeze. Dunno her name."

"Not bad looking, but is she real or is she actually a robot? That's gotta be a robot."

"Nah, she's alive, but rumor has it Freeze put her together outta spare parts from his fridge." The two snickered.

Her sometimes perverse sense of humor flared, and she turned, making eye contact with the pair. Keeping her voice low but speaking very clearly, she said, "There is absolutely _no truth_ to the rumor I once sawed a man's foot off with piano wire in a jealous rage." There had been no such rumor before, but there would be now.

They froze. She nodded and passed through to the betting office, where she hesitated before placing fifty thousand on herself to win and fifty thousand more on a rolling accumulator that she would reach the seventh level. Whatever she won in passing each level would then be bet on reaching the next, and depending on the odds, she might even fare better that way. She glanced at the odds board there, where every dancer had a listing. As an unknown and a first time participant, the odds against her were quite high. Handing over the money, she collected her slips. Next to the board was a monitor which showed each newly arrived combatant along with the names and the stats Deirdre had collected, details about any enhancements and so forth.

A sudden outburst from the bookies stopped her. "Holy shit!" "_He's_ here? Clear the board, clear the whole goddamn motherfuckin' board!"

The face on the monitor was that of a man who did not look old but was certainly not young. His hair was silver grey, and an eye patch covered one eye. He did not look as though he had ever had a single happy day in his life. The name on the screen flashed: **Deathstroke. Enhancements: Augmented strength. Augmented speed. Augmented…** The list went on for quite a while. Apparently he had augmented everything. Then: **First appearance in the Championship. Body count: Redacted.**

Glancing at the board, she saw they had added his name. His odds of winning were five to one _in favor._ Everybody else's odds had lengthened by a factor of ten.

* * *

TBC:… Yeah, I didn't think this was going to be the next chapter, but guess what? My eternal thanks to Swordstitcher for doing a quick beta on it as well as reviewing. Thank yous also to Riksie-Dixie and Tev. A furisode, by the way, is a kimono with long dangling sleeves worn by unmarried women.


	7. Yukie: Elimination Rounds

Yukie knew who he was, of course. _Everyone __in the world of masks and capes_ knew who Deathstroke was, just as they knew who Lady Shiva was, and if only a fraction of the stories told about him were true, he was one of the most dangerous men in the world. This was the first time she had ever seen a picture of him without the his mask. Hurrying back to the waiting room, she found the mood entirely altered from alert anticipation to a stiff-backed apprehension as those closest to the entry subtly drew back to make room.

"He was just a spectator at last year's," she heard someone mumble. "Heard it was the first time he'd ever seen a match."

"He can't have gone from knowing nothing about it to world-class in a year," someone else protested.

"Him? It probably only took _him_ six months…"

"More like three…"

"I wouldn't have come all this way if I'd known…"

"Me neither. That's a hundred thousand I'll never see again."

Such was the tenor of the comments as the man himself entered the room. She did not have a very good view of him—just a glimpse of a stony profile and graying hair, but it seemed he was the very last entrant in the competition. That said something of him—he had waited, perhaps to make an entrance, but also perhaps because he knew his presence would deter others from entering.

The sword inspector appeared in the open doorway. "The event is about to begin. When the drums sound the challenge, please enter the combat floor via that door, one at a time. There are eighty-eight competitors this year, so after the opening remarks, the elimination rounds will begin with ten at a time. You may watch and wait from the back of the hall or return here. Remember that any improper conduct amongst yourselves will result in instant disqualification and may lead to a ban from future competitions. Thank you."

Tommy Chen started, "Should I go in? Since I'm your drummer—."

She held up a hand to forestall him. "I shan't need you until the freestyle round, which is the seventh. Don't listen too closely to the beat—I don't want you to imitate them, Just play as you normally play, and I will dance to your rhythms."

His 'drum set', such as it was, was comprised of several plastic buckets in different sizes. She had cut through Gotham's Chinatown one day on her way to the monorail, and found him playing on a street corner for whatever money people put in a jar at his feet. Stopping to listen to him for a while, she was struck by the fresh spontaneity of his beats, how he played the heartbeat of youth and city life that pulsed through the streets. When she approached him with the request that he play for her that night, he had at first refused, so she had appealed to his grandmother instead, and with her on Yukie's side, had won the argument.

"Okay. Man, I feel like a midget in here. Even the guys who aren't that tall or that big, they have this presence to them, you know?"

"I know," she replied. And none more so that Deathstroke. He was like a huge mastiff in a room full of cats made nervous by his presence. Even though he wasn't attacking, there was the sense that he might at any moment.

The drums began the call, a martial cadence with an accelerating beat. The door to the loading dock opened, and the nearest began to file in. She turned to Granny Chen. "Is anything out of place?"

It was important to create an impression upon entering the arena, and so it was for this, the parade before the spectators, that she had dressed so carefully. Her furisode had a pattern of falling snow swirling on the wind, not as tiny individual snow flakes, but fat soft clumps, all in white and shades of grey on a black background. The obi cinching her waist was scarlet with real silver and gold foil appliqués in a basket-weave pattern, and in her hair was an engraved mother-of-pearl comb and hair stick set, all of which her grandmother had given her over the years.

"No, no, nothing—wait," The elderly woman adjusted one of the sticks. "There. You are lovely. Such perfect skin, I never saw the like before. Ah, I wish I was your age again. Or even just thirty years younger. So many good men here!" she giggled.

"Grandma!" Tommy protested after the fashion of all scandalized youth.

"What? How do you think I got to be a grandma in the first place! All right, all right. I will be waiting at the back." The two Chens withdrew to one side, out of the way of the competitors, as Yukie joined the line. Reaching the head of it, she paused, waiting for the dancer before her to clear the entryway. Then she stepped forward. Blinding light in her eyes once again, then clarity.

The stadium seats were full now, and the seats up in the director's office as well. There were the three judges' seats, the first occupied by Jade Nguyen, famous under the name of Cheshire, the center by a man she did not know, and the third by Lady Shiva. Off to one side sat a throne-like chair occupied by the Penguin, who was staring down with an avid, greedy look on his pudgy face. She could hear an oceanic murmur of voices as she made her way to the next empty space on the floor with the small, artful steps that made a kimono's hem flow like water. Unable to catch exact words over the drums, she could only interpret the hum as not-terribly-interested wonder.

More competitors entered, some eliciting a more excited tone from the audience, until, again at the tail end of the pack, Deathstroke entered. Then the murmur of excitement became a roar, some spectators standing on their chairs to get a better look. The sudden whine of a microphone cut through the din.

"Good evening, and welcome to the first Jian Wu Annual Championship held in our great city," the Penguin blustered out over the hall. "In case any of you are worried about unwanted interruptions by You-Know-Who, tonight Batman is playing tag with the Joker and Harley Quinn on the other side of town, bad cess to them, and won't be any bother to us tonight."

_Poor little man_, Yukie thought. _He thinks himself the master of the house tonight, but he is only the court jester. There in the center is the real king. _The judge she was thinking of was a man bridging the gap between middle aged and elderly, with astreaks of grey in his hair and a widows' peak cresting his high forehead.

"—the judges tonight are the lovely ladies Cheshire and Lady Shiva, and of course our most distinguished guest, the great Ra's Al Ghul! Now Shiva will explain matters for those of you who haven't been to a Jian Wu event before."

Handing off the microphone to Lady Shiva, who took it as she might take a used tissue, with great distaste and looking as though she would rather not touch it, he sat down heavily, pulling the lapels of his coat closer to his neck.

"Good evening," Shiva began. "Jian Wu is an art form dating back three thousand years or more. Based upon sword training exercises conducted to the beat of a drum for synchronicity, it evolved into a formal dual in which the dualists begin by performing, solo yet in synch, the six maneuvers upon which all Jian Wu is based. Furthermore, all maneuvers must be performed while leaping—both feet must leave the ground—and require precise slashes with two swords over, under and around the body.

"Only if a competitor can complete each maneuver perfectly at tempo upon their first attempt, will they be allowed to progress to the next, and finally to the seventh level, which is the freestyle round. You will be judged upon your grace, accuracy, closeness of blades to the body, and elevation of leap. Eighty-five to ninety percent of you will be eliminated during the six mandatory maneuvers. If you injure yourself, which is common—on occasion there is a dancer who goes so far as to sever their own foot— you may continue for as long as you desire; no one will stop you from bleeding out if you so desire. If you cannot complete a maneuver successfully, in the seventh round or before, you are out. Needless to say, the judges' decisions are final.

"Only eight to twelve of you will reach the seventh round, at which time _and not before_, you will cross steel until there is only one dancer remaining. This is the level at which Jian Wu becomes art, and occasionally it becomes death. Seventh-level maneuvers are freeform, and the only requirement is that they be of the highest difficulty. Merely because the round is called freestyle does not mean you are allowed to improvise wildly; there are nearly a thousand recognized maneuvers to choose from, surely enough for anyone's self-expression. Once you complete a maneuver successfully, you are free to strike at your opponent in any way you choose, provided you can do so_ before_ your feet touch the ground. Performing an offensive strike while so much as a toe touches the ground means your immediate elimination. Your opponent may defend, block, counter or parry your strikes as they choose, but may not do more than defend unless they too are in mid-leap."

Shiva suddenly stood up, and she looked down upon the waiting fighters. "While fatalities happen, I must emphasize that the intent of Jian Wu is self-expression, not slaughter." Could it be that she was looking specifically at Deathstroke while she said the words?

"Accidental deaths are most often due to panic upon the part of a dancer who is then leaping up when he should be coming down and his opponent cannot pull his own strike in time. We are familiar with such accidents. We are also familiar with deliberate slaughter, and if we judge a death to be so, it means immediate disqualification. I trust you understand."

Yes, that was definitely aimed at Deathstroke.

"That having been said, it is said that Jian Wu is excellence and skill and pride and courage and grace and magnificence rolled into one. We are very glad to see both familiar faces and new at this year's championship. Now _dance_." She reclaimed her seat, and the first ten competitors took their places, five and five, facing each other but at a distance of some paces. Quickly doffing her furisode, obi, and hair ornaments and handing them over to granny Chen, Yukie turned back to watch the competition.

The drum beats changed, beginning the soft growl of the Tiger, and the fighters leaped, slashing their swords forward in imitation of a great cat pouncing on prey. All ten passed—not unexpected, for anyone who could not complete the first maneuver would hardly enter this competition—and they were succeeded by the next ten. Again, the soft insistent growl, the pounce—and again, all passed. Upon the third set of ten, one man was eliminated because his left-hand sword wavered, and another man was eliminated from the fifth set for leading with the wrong foot. Yukie's turn came, and she executed the move without flaw.

The seventh set and the eighth eliminated no more fighters, and then it was time for the last set, the set of eight, including Deathstroke. Why she had chosen to focus on him more than any other? Because he was the only one who she knew of personally, because he exuded such power and confidence. Because he had an_ interesting_ face. She could see him properly now. Bare to the waist, his chest was marred with scar tissue to the point where there was hardly a hand's span of skin without a mark on it. He performed the Tiger with the air of someone performing a boring classroom exercise, and then it was time for the Kingfisher.

The Kingfisher called for wing-beat slashes and a swoop like a kingfisher plucking a fish from the water. This time five people were eliminated, one woman and four men. It was with a sense of great satisfaction that she watched 'Gash' slice his own right shin open down to the bone. The rounds paused while he was helped out of the ring and the floor washed down—as they brought him past her, she could not help but say, in saccharine sweet tones, "Oh, my. What a_ terrible_ gash!" He was in too much pain to glare at her. Her turn, and she performed it with the 'Tail Flick' variation, a showy little move that drew a small round of applause.

Deathstroke again passed the round without ever getting into the true rhythm of the dance.

Third round—Dragon's Breath. This was the first real challenge for most of the fighters. It called for_ four _successive leaps, during which the swords swirled like smoke spiraling from nostrils, and it was easy to drop one or both swords if you crossed your arms wrong. Twenty-one were eliminated that round. Yukie was not among them, nor, of course, was _he_.

She was beginning to feel overheated, however, and between turns went to get a bottle of cold water and a towel from Granny. She drank only a few swallows—if she left the room to relieve her bladder, she would miss her turn—and poured the rest on the towel, wrapping it around her neck to cool the pulse points.

The fourth maneuver was the Swan—mantling wings as though it descended on a lake. If a dancer could make it to the fourth round, then the Swan was usually relatively easy, but all the same, seventeen more were eliminated. That meant over half the competitors were now out. After passing with ease, Yukie broke out an instant cold pack and tucked it down the front of her tunic, in between her breasts, to cool her throbbing heart. She was thus occupied when Deathstroke's turn came, but naturally he passed.

Fifth round, the Serpent. In an ordinary match, one-on-one as Jian Wu events usually went, the six would follow in rapid succession. This way, one had but a moment and then a long wait between. Too long, never mind that so many were eliminated. There was too much time to become excited, to long to dance properly. She executed the maneuver, including the 'Cobra Hood'—again, a slight round of applause—and then commandeered a bucket of water from one of the Penguin's floorwashers. She poured it over her head, ruining the tight bun she had put her hair up in. Pulling it down around her shoulders in long, stringy strands, she awaited the results.

Twelve eliminated. That left thirty-one. Nineteen to twenty-three would have to be eliminated in the next round, which was Night Rain. Night rain was another multi-leap move, each time with twelve slashes beginning an arms' length above the head and ending at the feet. The man next to her made a grievous error and sliced off half his left hand, spattering her with blood, but she did not flinch and she finished the maneuver—although she was doubtful of her last set. She had only managed about eleven and a half slashes before she touched down.

The injured man was out, of course, since he could no longer hold his blade, and then there was a longer pause as the judges conferred. She assumed Deathstroke made it without any difficulty, and poured another bucket of water over her head. The first had been very successful, since being drenched with water was the same as being drenched in sweat and served the same purpose, cooling by evaporation.

The conference went on for several minutes, and while she waited she was surprised to hear someone calling her name, and what was more, calling 'Yukie-chan', a fond endearment. Looking up, she saw someone she never expected—her great-uncle, who was a vice-president of Zento Motors. That did not mean what it once had, as Zento was struggling in both domestic and foreign markets.

"Uncle?" She got to her feet.

"Yukie, what do you think you're doing here?"

"Doing here? I am competing. Surely you know I've been making my own way in the world ever since my family, including you, conspired behind my back to divorce me and marry my only sister to my husband!" she called up to him in a projected whisper.

"Of course I knew! There were reasons we did what we did, things you don't know about. But, you, here? Doing this?" he shook his head. "I thought it was you when you came in—you look just like your grandmother. Even wearing her furisode—and speaking of which, aren't you far too old to be wearing husband-hunting clothes?"

"I may be about to compete for the Jian Wu world championship and you're going to quibble about what I _wore_?! A little perspective is in order, I think, dear uncle!"

"Speak with more respect when you speak to me!" he barked. "And get up here! You cannot continue with this!"

"Neither you nor anyone else in my family has the right to tell me what I may and may not do!" she returned. "My life is my own now! It has_ been _my own for nearly two decades!"

"You don't understand! You'll never win! Do you want to be slaughtered that badly—." She whirled and walked away from whatever else he had to say. Besides, they were reading off who was eliminated.

She had done it. She made it to the seventh level. Checking the odds board, she sighed a little in relief. Thanks to the rolling accelerator bet, she had already won at least a third of what was needed to cover the debt, which would be a great help even if she won nothing else. Then she saw the odds for winning had changed. Now it was twenty-three to one in Deathstroke's favor, and two hundred fifty-six to one against anybody else.

* * *

A/N: Damn, don't know how this is turning out to be so long a scene. This chapter is inspired by Barry Hughart's excellent novel The Bridge of Birds. Thanks to SwordStitcher, Riksie-Dixie, and as ever, Tev!


	8. Nora, Victor, Slade: Counterpoint

"I'm sorry, Ms. Fries," the doctor said, "but while you'll never suffer from further damage from Huntington's, there is nothing that can be done to reverse the symptoms. You'll experience minor involuntary spasms and tremors for the rest of your life. At this time, there is no effective treatment in existence. However, there are therapists and groups which can offer you emotional support and practical advice. I'd be happy to—." He could only offer Nora a tissue as she began crying.

Once she recovered herself and blew her nose, she looked up to him—he was a very attractive man, she noted, too. "I'm sure you think this is petty, considering that I was dying not so long ago, from my point of view that is, and I'm glad to be alive, but I was a dancer. That was all I ever wanted to do—as a career, that is. I don't know what I am, if I can't dance."

"I'm very sorry," he said. "—you know, I can think of someone much closer to home you should definitely speak to about how to live with a condition such as yours. Your husband's assistant, ah, what was her name? I don't remember, but I noticed she has something similar. It doesn't seem as though she lets it stop her."

"Assistant?" she asked, racking her brain to recall if Victor had mentioned having an assistant.

"Yes, a very striking woman, if a bit chilly—."

Nora flinched at the word, thinking of Victor, and the doctor must have read it on her face.

"Oh. I'm sorry," he apologized, looking stricken. "It's just an expression, I didn't mean—."

"It's all right," Nora Fries cut in, but he went on.

"—even with everything that happened to him and everything he did, he's still the pioneer of modern cryogenics and Huntington's research as well, a genius—."

"Wait," Nora stopped him. "Wait a minute. What? What do you mean, _everything he did_? What did he do?"

"He—he—You don't know, then."

"No. I don't. What did he do?"

"I never meant—." With all this dithering, she noticed that for all that he smiled nicely, his chin was weak and his eyes too deep set.

"What. Did. He. Do?" she gritted out.

"It was several years ago. He hasn't done anything like it for at least five years—."

"Tell me!"

"He was a criminal." the doctor finally blurted out.

* * *

Back at the facility by the bay, Victor Fries ascended from his frozen hell up to the warm bright heaven he had had built for Nora atop the existing structure. It was ready. He opened the doors as he walked around. The kitchen fit for a professional chef which extended out as living room and dining room combined. There was the practice room, with its mirrored wall and barré, the floor waiting for the first graceful step. There was the bathroom with an extra large soaking tub, the spacious closets… the bedroom he would never share. Well, at least they would be close together. If, once she recovered from her future shock, she still wanted to stay by him.

He couldn't live simply anywhere, given his condition, so when the cure was imminent, he gave Yukie the details about the sort of house they had dreamed of having someday, and turned the project over to her. She'd found an architect, dealt with the builders and aerospace engineers—when people with such different environmental requirements shared a building, making sure Nora would stay safe was a vital consideration. He frowned in thought. No wonder Yukie needed a long vacation so badly. He had placed a great deal on her without thinking twice about whether she would be able to handle the work load. She had never complained, though.

One never noticed the people who were quietly competent until they weren't there any longer. Not that she was gone as yet, but she would be soon. He hoped the man she was seeing, whoever he was, appreciated her…

* * *

Slade Wilson woke with a snort. He was in a bed—good. A clean and comfortable bed, better. The bed sheets still held lingering aromas of sex and a clean smelling perfume, better yet. The faint hint of gun oil from the weapon under the pillow was so familiar it didn't even register. The soft sounds of someone drowsing beside him meant he was with Yukie and this was Gotham City, if any confirmation beyond sex and perfume was needed. All this took but a split second to process through his cortex.

(Certain occasions invited introspection, and when two people who had not spent more than forty-odd consecutive hours together at a time proposed to go on a trip lasting eight weeks, it called for some consideration. So it was not a coincidence that each of them had a long quiet think about things.)

He rolled over to face her. Exactly how old was Yukime Kuwano, anyhow?

Looking at her skin, he would say she was not that much older than his daughter Rose, but that poreless pale ivory was deceptive. The firm athleticism of her body was that of a woman in her twenties, but she could not have gone to University, graduated, been married and divorced after three years and then worked for Freeze for twelve if that were the case. Judging by how she dressed and how readily responsive she was in bed, she was in her mid-thirties. Going by her knowledge of the world, her poise and wit, he would have said she was over forty. No surgeon's scalpel or cosmetician's Botox needle had ever touched her face or body. So what was the answer? Looking at the ID in her wallet would tell him nothing; she used a false name for these occasions.

He had perfect recall of how they met. He'd been told that Jian Wu was the martial art for people who found conventional martial arts too slow, dull and earthbound. After watching the previous year's bout, he dedicated an hour a day to learning the maneuvers and practicing with two blades. Unfortunately, the only real competition, Lady Shiva, was sitting on the judge's bench this year. What a waste of time this was…

He looked around at the eleven other finalists looking for weaknesses. That one had cheap, poorly made blades, that one over there had dedicated too much training to his torso and not enough to his legs, that one was greener than grass—when had everyone under the age of thirty started looking like a child? Only two women had made it to the seventh level. One was a member of Talia's bodyguard, interchangeable body-doubles of their mistress. No doubt some few of them had lost their lives standing in for her.

The other…The other looked as though someone had tried to drown her and nearly succeeded. As he assessed her, she gathered up her bedraggled hair, wrung half a pint of water out of it, and bound it back from her face. Venus Anadyomene as drawn by Yoshitoshi or Hiroshige, dressed in blood-stained white. Her waterlogged tunic was plastered to her body, revealing a figure that was athletic rather than voluptuous. No plastic surgery here; her breasts were proportionate to her bone structure and body mass. As for her face— if she were set down next to Cheshire no one would give her a second look, except for her skin. By the look of it, her reflexes had been enhanced to the point where she was constantly jumpy. All in all, a more interesting potential adversary than the generic ninja.

The first match pitted the two women against each other, perhaps to eliminate them quickly. The soaking wet swordswoman beckoned to a Chinese youth, who—was he going to be drumming on plastic buckets?

Apparently so. It was said that the right drummer was the equivalent of a third sword, because although the drummers played in unison through the six mandatory maneuvers, during the seventh they split and each played for one combatant alone. The traditional drummer pounded the cadence for the salute, the judges started the sand clock, and then the match began. By tradition, the match would last until one fighter was eliminated for some reason or the hourglass ran out, whichever came first. If the latter, then the judges debated over whose form had been better.

Immediately Slade saw the bodyguard's problem. She could not focus on her drummer alone; the boy with the plastic buckets was distracting her. Martial artist she might be, but a dancer she was not. Venus Hiroshige saw this too, and amused herself by first slicing a lock of hair from the woman's head and then an armband from her bicep without breaking the skin. The ninja, furious enough to spit at that point, badly botched her next maneuver and made her offensive move after touching down.

Realizing what she had done, she threw herself on her hands and knees in abject misery facing the judges and her mistress, who was sitting behind her father. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

"The judges declare Yuki-Onna the winner of this match," was the only reply. So that was Venus Hiroshige's nom de guerre. He would remember that.

The ninja slunk off while the victor retreated to the sideline, and the next two took their place. This was a more equal match between two men he recognized from the previous year's match. It ran to the very last grain of sand, and then the three up above conferred for a few minutes before declaring a winner.

The third match proceeded in much the same way, the fourth ended when one fighter half-scalped his opponent, who could not go on with blood streaming into his eyes, and the fifth ended when one of the men attempted the maneuver 'Eight Drakes Under the River Bridge' and slashed into his own scrotum. Messy. Slade was getting bored.

His turn, and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a vulpine grin when he saw the pup with the pot-metal blades. Already strategizing, he set out to make this match a more interesting one.

The match looked normal at the start, except that Slade never lost that cold wide grin. While attempting his third maneuver, Deathstroke's opponent flung himself into his attack with such velocity and momentum that even when his blade hit the assassin's and broke, he kept going, half-decapitating himself on the other man's blade. His blood fountained out in two frothy jets, spraying the competitors and painting the splatter shields in crimson. For his part, Slade had not moved so much as a muscle other than the original blocking move. He simply stood and let it all happen, calculated to a split second and a hair's breadth.

The crowd burst into uproar, half approval, half outrage.

"Halt!" Shiva got to her feet. "Deathstroke—." Ra's put a hand on her sleeve. "We will confer," she bit back whatever it was she had been going to say, and put her head together with that of her fellow judges. He took the opportunity to wash off the blood and waited. They summoned the sword inspector, who, by his body language, was telling them the fool had brought a pair of fancy wakizashi that were actually wrought iron bonded to mild steel.

Finally they split apart. Ra's spoke for them. "The judges declare this an accidental death with the proviso that it be the only one. Deathstroke is the winner."

He grinned wider, and left the center of the arena.

The matches continued. Six remained—or rather, five and himself—then there were four—then three others—and finally he faced the last and the best of them.

Venus Hiroshige. Yuki-Onna. Again, she was streaming wet, and the blood on her tunic had spread out into something like an abstraction of roses. She was perhaps five foot six or seven and a hundred and forty pounds to his six-six and two hundred twenty five. She also looked angry enough to fry eggs on her head. The drums sounded the cadence and the hourglass turned.

He began by leaping into the move which had unmanned that other fighter, 'Eight Drakes Under the River Bridge', slashing the blades around his body and between his legs, perfectly and without self injury, and then flicked out in a move that would have sliced up her shoulder.

She parried, leapt into the air like a length of silk snapped out by the wind, and returned with 'Ice Falling From the Mountaintop', a move that was considered very nearly impossible, and still had time before her toes touched the ground for two swipes meant to remove his eyebrows. He blocked those easily, and went straight into 'Stallion Racing In the Meadow', then feinted toward her midsection with one blade while going for her left ear with the other.

She anticipated the feint and countered the ear-cut with a hiss like a scalded cat, then leapt up like a springbok into a maneuver that was triple the difficulty, 'Storm Clouds'.

He heard the crowd roar before he felt the sting or the hot wetness suddenly flooding the side of his head. She couldn't have—she had! She had blindsided him, sliced his ear half off!

"Will you _stop_—phoning it in?!" she fumed at him from a safe distance.

_Phoning it in?_ It would not have been so insulting if there were no truth in it. He hadn't been putting much into this because until now, there had been no need.

So she wanted his best? She would have it. Furious, he whipped into 'Eagle Screams', aiming two savage blows toward her face that would have cost her several teeth had they landed.

Yuki-Onna suddenly smiled as she countered, a happy joyous, _stunning_ smile, and answered with 'Eagle Screams Above the Lamb' which was several times as difficult as his move, and still had time for two strikes intended to remove his beard and mustache and a third that would have unmanned him had they landed.

The crowd cheered, and he heard Ra's Al Ghul's voice ring out. "That's only the _sixth _time I've seen_ that_ move performed successfully!"

He one-upped that with 'Stork Hunting Frogs Among the Lotus', and then….then something shifted within him_. I want to bed her. I want to bed her __**tonight**_.

She wasn't _that_ pretty, and her figure wasn't the sort to turn men's mouths dry and their palms wet, but she danced with joy in it, he saw that now, and joy was something he had little enough of in anything. Other than killing, that was.

He wanted her, and could not remember the last time he wanted a woman like this, wanted one with more appetite than one might have for just another potato chip. And it had to be _her_, too, not simply an anonymous female body. So at the very last moment, he pulled a blow that would have laid her face open from chin to cheekbone. A woman with her face in shreds would not be in a seducible mood, after all. Nor would one who lost after dancing like this.

The question now was, how to let her win without making it obvious? He couldn't simply let her beat him, his pride wouldn't allow it and it would never be credible. If this were any sort of fight other than Jian Wu, he would have cut her into collops long before; only the formal rules gave her any sort of chance.

She went right into 'Maple Leaves Caught In the Torrent' followed by a flashing strike designed to remove his nose, landed on her toes, and then her eyes grew wide as she saw what he was doing.

Leaping up, he went into 'Widow's Tears', only instead of forward, he went backward, to make her come to him. With a hawk's cry of fury, she followed, savagely tearing into 'Bamboo Spears', her swords flashing into blurs, but now the sand clock was swirling almost as fast.

Launching into 'Clash of Antlers In the Forest', he slashed a fingerwidth of fabric from the side of her tunic, but she redoubled with 'Treacherous Currents', her blades leaping out to try and flay him stem to stern.

He parried, and now the crowd began shouting a countdown as he went into 'Tenth Dive of the Blue Heron', his sword leaping out to touch her throat, drawing a line just _there_—the second _after_ the last grain of sand ran out.

There was a moment's utter silence, and Yuki-Onna dropped her blades, her hands flying to her neck, her face a mask of utter horror as she expected to feel her life springing out over her fingers.

The merest trickle was all she found there. He had been _very_ precise.

Up above, there was murmuring in the judges' box. Finally Cheshire said, sounding as though she did not believe what was coming out of her mouth. "The judges find that Deathstroke did not finish his final maneuver before the time ran out, and that….therefore, we declare Yuki-Onna the winner of this year's Jian Wu World Championship."

The entire room exploded into an uproar, shouting, applauding, cheering, screaming, and whistling.

Yuki-Onna was wobbling on her feet. She did not look as though she believed it either. "I…won?" she asked, looking up at him.

"Yes," he said, and then leaned in close to say directly into her ear, "but I've marked you now."

Her hands came away from the wound, and she replied defiantly, "_I_ marked _you_ first."

"So you did." He sheathed his blades, reached out a hand. "Peace?"

She glanced at his hand and then at his face before she slipped her fingers into his. "Peace."

After that, he went to the first aid area, where they cleaned his face and put a couple of stitches into his ear before wrapping it in gauze. He didn't really need it—he healed very quickly, after all. What he was doing was waiting. Just as in 'Widow's Tears', it was all about making her come to him.

Above his head, he could hear Yuki-Onna being introduced to the Judges, caught snippets of the conversation.

Ra's: "I know your secret."

The champion replied, "Truly? Which one is that?"

The ancient Assassin chuckled. "A very good question. Tell me, how did Freeze acquire talent like yours, and how is it we haven't heard of you before now?"

Part of her reply was lost, but he did hear, "…have various medical issues which make Dr. Fries an ideal employer for me. I am not suited to heavy combat, this night aside, but there is nothing wrong with my mind and so I prefer to use that."

Shiva put in. "You are indeed a remarkable dancer, Yuki-Onna. Do not mistake that for being a great warrior, lest it prove fatal. It takes more than talent and practice."

"I know that all too well, which is why I work for Dr. Fries and live very quietly, with no one knowing or particularly caring who I am."

"That is very wise of you," Shiva replied. "I hope that some day I will have the pleasure of meeting you in the ring."

Then more conversation which he could not follow, before her clear voice said, "Asking how much it would take to have me leave Dr. Fries and join you is like a man writing poems of praise to a woman's chastity while trying to seduce her. If I would abandon him for enough money then I would also betray you."

"And if something were to happen to Freeze, leaving you masterless?" Ra's smoothly countered.

"I believe the accepted response is to hunt down and slaughter those responsible, is it not?" she replied. "However, it may be that at some point in the future my obligations to him will be fulfilled, and once I am free, should you still have a use for me, I would certainly consider joining you."

Ra's said, with a smile in his voice. "Then I look forward to that possibility. Thank you. It has been a pleasure meeting you, Yuki-Onna. It is rare that one meets someone who does not burn to outshine the sun in this shadow half-world we move in. Modesty has great charm, too. Now go and get your hurts looked to. You are still bleeding."

She came down the stairs, and paused when she saw him there at the side table. The medics cleaned the cut, painted it with disinfectant, and she did not look at him at all while they did it. She did not look at him but she was aware of him as he was of her. Finally when they were done and she was bandaged, he got up and went into the hall—and waited again.

She followed and paused, her eyes searching his face. Then she reached up, drew his face down to hers, and placed a brief feather-light kiss on his lips. The second kiss was neither brief nor tentative. The third…

She left there with him.

Good as it was between them that night, he didn't plan on coming back for more. However, a few weeks later when he had a 'job' planned in Gotham, he found himself remembering very vividly how she had felt and moved and smelled and tasted— so he had called, and she was free. It was even better that night.

The third time, some idiot fired a mortar round into the restaurant where they were dining, and not only was she cool under fire, but she picked shards of glass out of his shoulders with tweezers afterward, utterly unfazed. Then there was the time they broke the bed, and…now, more than two years later, long after he would have thought he would be bored, or that she would have stopped answering his calls, they were still seeing each other.

He reached for the control to the suite's entertainment center, turned it on and brought up the room service menu. Coffee for him, tea for her, rare steak and potato galettes for him, tea-cured salmon and herbed scrambled eggs for her, juice for both. No need to wake her and ask; he knew what she would want.

When you knew someone_ that_ well, you were in a relationship and it was time to admit it to yourself.

Slade had already made up his mind. He would go with her on this pilgrimage through Haunted Japan. It should prove amusing. She had gone into more detail about her plans over dinner, and most of the sites she proposed to visit had historical or military significance, which would be interesting. However—whatever else came of it, this trip would change things between them. It was quite possible they would be sick of each other after a week and break up. It was also quite possible they would get along just as well as they did short term, and then—see exactly where they stood.

It was time to set his plan in motion, now that she was done working for Freeze, before Ra's or someone else could make her an offer. Someone with her capabilities and attributes could write her own ticket with any of the major players on either side.

And Rose was part of the plan, another piece on the chessboard. Yes, he would call his daughter, tell her he was seeing someone, use that as a bridge to reconciliation.

Yukie woke when the food arrived and exclaimed with pleasure. While she was pouring her tea, he chose that moment to ask her something he had long wondered about.

"Yukie…obviously you know what I do for a living."

"Yes," she replied. "You are the finest assassin in the world. I would never be able to respect you if you weren't good at what you do."

"I've come to expect a wide range of reactions when someone finds that out. Serene acceptance is nowhere along that spectrum."

She shrugged. "I knew who you were before we ever met. I made up my mind to accept what you do the moment before I kissed you. I was raised Shinto Buddhist, and I largely still am, but I admit my way of thinking about certain things is unorthodox. My personal beliefs are elastic enough to encompass assassination, provided the assassin behaves with the mercy and compassion appropriate to his trade."

He had to smile at that. "And what are those?"

"A sharp blade and a clean shot. A fast death without prolonged suffering. Death is not the end; it's merely a return to the wheel, and chance to get things right in your next existence. It's how we behave toward each other while we're here that matters. Eat up, your steak is getting cold."

* * *

A/N: Longest Chapter Ever. I would like to thank SwordStitcher, Tev, my anonymous reviewer, Riksie-Dixie and Bat-Teen28 for their reviews, and if you enjoyed this chapter, please let me know. If you have questions, let me know. If you have suggestions, let me know. I'm here.


	9. Yukie, Nora: Damage Control

Yukie turned her phone back on as she left the hotel. One e-mail, two texts, the first from a stranger, the second two from Dr. Fries. Skipping the e-mail for the moment, she checked the two from her employer. The first of those apologized for disturbing her in her off hours, but he required her assistance at Nora's clinic rather urgently. The second reminded her of his villain days—he demanded to know where she was and ordered her to meet him at the clinic _immediately_. A third message arrived even as she read the second—he first apologized for the tone of the last message, there was no medical emergency, yet he would still appreciate her help.

She hailed a taxi and gave the clinic address, then fired off a reassuring text that she was on her way. With that out of the way, she looked at the stranger's email. It was from (of all people) Ra's Al Ghul, or at least it was sent in his name. There was no point in wondering how he got her address, as people on his level of power could access anything they pleased.

It was only one sentence, 'Is it not familiar?', but there was an image attached, a copy of a woodblock print from the Edo period, when Japan cut itself off from the outside world for more than two hundred and fifty years. Woodblock prints were not high art at the time; they were much like posters or comic books of the current day: cheap, mass produced examples of popular culture.

This one was part of a series, '36 Contemporary Beauties From The Pleasure Quarter'—portraits of the reigning courtesans in that era's red-light district. This was 'Miss Carnation'—the accompanying poem read 'This flower wilts sadly in the heat—the stem that fills her slender vase must have enough dew to refresh her. How she enjoys it!'. A pretty, ephemeral bit of verse—unless you knew that stem was a euphemism for penis, vase meant vagina, and dew meant seminal fluid.

However, Ra's had not sent it to her for the sake of the poetry. 'Miss Carnation' was shown lounging on cushions in her boudoir, a black iron incense burner in the shape of a rattan ball at her feet sending tendrils of smoke through the air to caress her. She was wearing a black furisode with a pattern of falling snow in shades of grey and white, with a scarlet obi in a basketweave pattern. Identical, or nearly so, to the garb Yukie had worn to the Jian Wu competition.

Why was one of the most formidable individuals in the world bothering with her, especially since it had been more than two years since they met? Bedmate aside, she was still very much a nobody.

Why this particular interest in what she had worn? The designs were hardly unique.

Which of her secrets did he know, or had he simply been teasing her? Even if he had somehow secured a copy of her grandmother's final letter to her, only she knew how to read the secret message. Was she the only one, though? Her grandmother must have picked up the idea from somewhere.

Was it perhaps something she did not even know herself? That was always a possibility.

She considered several possible replies to his e-mail before sending, 'How charming of you to remember me! Yes, 'Miss Carnation's' ensemble is very like the one I inherited from my grandmother. How exciting it would be to have a connection to such an alluring figure from the past, but the falling snow motif and the obi pattern are still popular today, or they are popular again, I should say. I thank you for calling this to my attention, and I will see about getting a copy. Sincerely, Yukime Kuwano.'

There. That was done. Polite, pleasant, noncommittal, and respectful. Also, considering what to say and how to phrase it had filled the ride to the clinic quite nicely. She found Dr. Fries and one of the clinic doctors in the observation room. The doctor's body language was stiff and defensive, Victor's hunched and despairing.

On realizing she had entered, her employer looked up with an expression of relief. "Thank God. You're finally here."

"What's wrong?" she asked, placing her overnight bag beside the sofa discreetly.

"This…" There were a number of choice words stifled in that pause. "_man_ told Nora something I had planned to break to her myself in my own time and my own way."

"She could have Googled it at any moment," the doctor mumbled.

"She has no idea what Google is," Victor Fries snapped back. "The point being, Nora now knows what I had to resort to before the money from the patents started coming in. She is, as you may imagine, very upset, and I find….I cannot go in there and face her. I simply cannot. I know this is hardly within your job description, but as a personal favor, can you—." He left the statement open-ended.

He was not lacking in bravery, she knew. Yukie had seen him face down Batman and take out Killer Croc when the latter was inches away from smashing his wife's cryochamber, but Nora held his naked heart in her two hands. He had fought death itself and made it loose its hold on her, yet in the face of her anguish, he was vulnerable.

"I can," she replied, and took a moment to consider how. Looking to the indiscreet doctor, she asked, "Is there any reason Mrs. Fries could not leave the clinic for a few hours today to see something of the city as it is now? If I understand correctly, any change in her condition is apt to be slow."

"Well, we don't really have any data on cryorevivals," the man began, "She could have a sudden stroke—but if she wore a remote monitor with an alarm, I don't see any reason why she couldn't have an outing."

"Very good," Yukie said. Glancing out the window, she saw the logo for a luxury department store at the mall a few blocks away. "First, Dr. Fries, what is Nora's dress size, and what is her shoe size? She has no clothes, and she cannot go out without something to wear."

"Her sizes—Size four dresses and size six shoes, as I recall. She likes blue."

"Size four of thirty years ago is liable to be a size two or even size zero today," she commented. Retailers had found that people bought more clothing when the labels read a smaller size than the garment really was. "I will get something where the exact fit is not too important. Second, you drove here, did you not? If you can arrange another way to get home, I will need the keys."

"Here," he handed them over.

"Thank you. Go home and wait there. You were not here this morning; instead you asked me to pick up some things for her, and then she and I will go for a drive. If all goes well, I will call when we return here, and you can return for a visit in the afternoon; if it goes _very_ well, I will bring her to the house."

"What else should I do?" Victor Fries asked.

If she did not give him a task, he would obsess to distraction over this. "Flowers," she said. "I placed an order for later in the week, but you could get them for today." No doubt he would overdo it, and both the house and Nora Fries' room would be overflowing with them, but better that than have him overwrought.

"Right," he said, his eyes met hers. "Thank you."

"It is too soon to thank me now," she said, "but I will do my best."

* * *

About an hour later:

Nora hadn't known what Google was when she woke up that morning, but she figured it out soon enough. The first thing she ever Googled was Victor's name. After about twenty minutes she gave up reading, turned off the tablet and cried herself out. Finally she was left in that state of dehydration and numbness that follows such an exhausting emotional purge, and then there was a knock on the door.

"Ms. Fries?" a female voice asked.

"Who is it?" she replied.

"My name is Yukie Kuwano and I'm Dr. Fries' assistant. He asked me to pick up some things for you. May I come in?" Victor's chilly yet striking assistant, the one with the condition like hers? Or should that be the other way around, striking yet chilly? The voice sounded friendly and human enough. She spoke excellent English, but with a light accent.

"Okay," she said. Why not?

The door opened, and Nora blinked. Her first thought was_: Snow White. No, her wicked stepmother_. _Only Asian_, because the woman standing there had black hair, white skin, and red lips. However, there was nothing of the lost princess about her and she _was_ undeniably Asian. Her clothes were also black, white and red. In one hand she held several garment bags by their clothes hangers, and around her feet was a small forest of shopping bags.

"Over the last thirty years, your wardrobe went missing, and since you can't go out without anything to wear, here you are," she explained, breezing into the room to hang the garments in the closet, then going to and fro with the other bags. Yes, there was a certain strangeness to the way she moved, something like Huntington's.

Yukie continued, "I didn't buy much today, since of course you'd rather have clothes you picked out yourself, but this should get you started. I've also ordered credit cards in your name. They should be here by the end of the week. This bag has lingerie, and this one is cosmetics—those are shoes, of course. Dr. Fries told me your sizes."

"Thank you," Nora said automatically, "…so, what is you do for Victor, other than shopping for his wife?" She wasn't really interested, but she could still be polite.

"Generally speaking, I take care of anything that might interrupt his work, even if it means putting on protective gear and assisting in the laboratory. I'm not a scientist, my degree is in Finance, but I am quite intelligent and I can follow complicated orders. Now, the clinic says you may leave the facility for as long as four hours provided you wear a remote monitor and alarm, so when you're dressed, I am ready to take you on a tour of Gotham. "

"Oh. Okay," Nora replied automatically, but then the meaning sank in. "Wait—we're leaving the building?"

"Yes. As a start to becoming acclimated to the world as it is now." Yukie Kuwano nodded.

"But I don't know, I'm not ready—."

"If not now, then when?" the woman asked, reasonably. "The longer you wait, the harder it will become."

Nora did not feel like getting up or getting dressed, let alone going out, but the assistant looked so resolute and unmovable…and she didn't have the energy to fight about it. Giving in seemed like the simplest way to deal with it. "Excuse me," she said, pulling the curtain to divide the room in two.

Bra—a simple bandeau style meant for several sizes, panties, hose… In one garment bag was a dress of cobalt blue wool, very plain but the tags said…was this really a five hundred dollar dress? The style was very sixties, and for a moment she thought it hopelessly outdated, until she remembered that in thirty years, all sorts of clothes could have gone out of fashion and come back in several times over.

Shoes, simple ballerina flats… in that bag was a purse, there a hat, scarf and gloves. Taking the make up into the bathroom, she emptied the bag out on the sink. Not much, just a neutral rose lipstick, liquid eyeliner, a compact with eye shadow in grey tones. That showed taste and sense. Too many people tried to make blue shadow go with blue eyes. Oh, there was a bottle of make up remover, too, that was good.

Uncapping the eyeliner, she began to outline one eye—but her hand twitched and she smeared it.

"God damn it!" she swore, grabbing a tissue, soaking it in remover and swiping at her eye. Then she began to cry again. Never again would she have steady hands…never again would she dance…her husband had done terrible, terrible things…what was left for her in this world?

"Ms. Fries?" Yukie asked from the other room. "I am here to help you, if you will only let me."

"I don't want help!" she fumed.

"I see," the woman replied, her voice low. "Is it me, personally? I know I do not come across as—I'm sorry, I can get a nurse—."

"It isn't you," Nora said, "I just don't—You have the same symptoms, the way you move... How can you _stand_ it? With people staring, and everything?"

"I've had this condition my entire life," came the quiet, low voiced reply. "Sometimes people ask me outright if I am actually a robot. The more self-conscious I feel, the more robotic I become, the more people find me strange, the more self-conscious I become. It is a self-perpetuating cycle. I was very withdrawn for several years, once I faced the fact that I would never be normal, but there was someone who taught me that I was stronger than I knew."

"Am I supposed to care who?" Nora asked. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against the cool surface mirror, feeling so very weary. Her breath fogged the glass.

"You should. It was Doctor Fries."

That got Nora to open the door. "Really?" she asked, putting all the skepticism she could muster into the word. "Do you know what he's done? The robberies? Holding schoolchildren for ransom? Supplying criminals with weapons?"

"I know," Yukie Kuwano answered. "In the first few years I worked for him, before I became his assistant and was still just an employee, he resorted to such measures when he had to. But they did not come easily or naturally to him, which was why, ever since I suggested I take on the role of his assistant, I have worked very hard to find alternative methods of financing his research. He is not an evil man; he never was an evil man, only a desperate one. May I?" She gestured to the make up.

Nora shrugged, spreading her hands. At that point, she did not truly care. Her husband's assistant picked up the liquid liner. "Close your eyes," she warned her, and Nora felt a gentle, cold stroke on first one eye, then the other. With the second eye, Yukie paused when her hand twitched, but then she went on to feather eye shadow on Nora's lids.

"There," she said when she was done. "I hope that is all right. I never applied make up to eyes with an eye crease before."

Nora opened them to see someone who looked more like the person she had been before. "It looks very nice. Thank you. I don't," she began. "I don't understand. What happened to Victor—why didn't it kill him? And I watched some of the news—people running around dressed as bats, killer clowns, people who can fly—what _happened_ to the world?"

"These are questions I can answer," Yukie replied. "You see, there is a rare recessive called the 'meta' gene. People who have two copies of it, like Dr. Fries, have the potential to change rather than die when exposed to catalysts like radiation or toxic chemicals. Less than point two percent of Earth's population have that potential, but since there are over seven billion humans alive today, that means there are at least a hundred thousand people who may develop strange powers or rare conditions, or have already done so..."

A couple of hours later, the two women sat in a roadside café high above the harbor. "You can't quite see your house from here, but it is behind that rock formation," Yukie said. They were now on first name terms, and as sometimes happens, had gone from being total strangers to acquaintances and even all the way to being friends.

"Nora, there is something more that I should tell you. When Dr. Fries became what he is now, his entire metabolism was affected, not simply his body temperature. He can no longer become intoxicated. He eats very little—less than a thousand calories a day, mostly in the form of a mixture of vodka and ice cream fortified with protein powder and a vitamin-mineral supplement. He is also aging far more slowly than a normal human.

"I know he seems much older than you at the moment, but there may come a time when you outstrip him. I know you can no longer have direct physical contact. Yet you will always be, to him, the person who taught him he was worthy of being loved."

Nora's eyes suddenly stung with tears, and she blotted them away carefully. "The way you speak of him –Yukie, are you in love with Victor?" She wanted Yukie to say yes, because then she could say to Victor, 'Yukie loves you. She loves you as you are, despite what you've done, and she has for twelve years. She's the one you should be with now.'

But instead Yukie smiled, very sweetly and very sadly, and said, "For several years, I thought I was. Dr. Fries has always treated me with courtesy and respect, even at the beginning when I had very little self-respect. And he also knows how to love. These are things I had very little of from the most important men in my life—my father, who never showed me a moment's affection, my little brother, who loved me until he learned to be ashamed of me—you see, in Japan, conformity is a virtue even today. There is some respect for those who _choose_ not to conform, but when you don't conform because you can't conform…My marriage was mercifully brief, for my husband was psychologically abusive, and afterward—when you believe you are worthless, you tend to be drawn to people who share your opinion of yourself. There were a couple of men who were happy to treat me as less than the dirt on their shoes. I don't like to dwell on that time. I did some very foolish things then.

"But one day I decided that I was going to change all of that. I decided I was going to leave Japan and go to the exact other side of the world, which according to my calculations was Gotham City. I blundered about here for a few weeks before I responded to a newspaper advertisement Dr. Fries placed, and then, over ten years, I rebuilt myself from the ground up while working for him. Eventually I came to realize what I felt for him was what a patient feels for a therapist. They call it 'transference,' because you transfer how much better you feel to the person who helped you feel that way. If he had ever noticed or responded to my feelings, I would have been shocked. Not merely shocked, but horrified and disappointed as well, because one of the things I value most in him is his devotion to you."

Her smile changed from sad to naughty. "Besides, then when I _did_ meet someone, I was ready."

Nora seized on that, because Yukie's story had been so truthful it hurt her heart. "Oh, you have a boyfriend! What's he like?"

Yukie laughed. "I am imagining the expression on his face if he heard himself described as someone's 'boyfriend'. He is_ very_ much a man in _every_ way."

"Does he know how to love, like Victor?" Nora asked.

"No," Yukie replied. "In fact, he is the sort of man any sensible woman would stay well away from, but…I told myself, 'Just once', and that 'Just once' was over two years ago, yet we are still together."

"Oh, Yukie! A bad boy, then? A bad _man_, I should say," she teased.

"A _very_ bad man," Yukie replied. "But he is good to me and I think I am good for him. Look, it's starting to snow." Outside over the harbor, soft feathers of pure white were lazily drifting down.

"It is! Oh, it's so beautiful." They watched it for a little while in silence. "Say, where's the waitress got to? I could use a top up on this coffee." Nora looked around. "It's dead in here today. Other than us, there's only about six people in here, and this ought to be the lunch hour rush. I wonder how they stay in business."

"It is not usually like this…" Yukie frowned, looking around as well. "Nora…I am sorry. I should have been paying more attention to the room."

"What? What's wrong?"

"Never mind that now. Go. Go toward the ladies' room, there is an emergency exit that way. Leave the building and call the police. Don't run, but go_ now_."

"Too late," someone said, turning around from the booth behind Nora.

TBC…

* * *

A/N: This chapter was actually going to be the scene between Nora and Victor, but the damn plot bunnies stepped in and this is what you get. Hope you enjoy it!

Thank you to my friends Swordstitcher and Tev for reviewing. Love ya!


	10. Nora, Rose, Nora: Collateral Damage

**Attention: If you are a long term reader of this fic, this is NOT the new chapter. There is a new first chapter and significant changes have been made to other chapters in between. **

* * *

_He has a gun. They all have guns_.

What struck Nora most was how _calm_ Yukie was. Her right hand crept to the blunt table knife before her as she met the eyes of the man in the booth behind her. "Is this random or specific?" she asked.

"Specific. Your man is going to learn a lesson today. Leave that where it is," he commanded her. "Larry, get their purses and make sure you've got their phones. Get that waiter in here, too," he added to another man.

Larry was a very large man in a grimy old pea coat, and he pawed through the purses after he collected them. "Yeah, got'em," he confirmed.

"Good." Two thugs propelled a young man into the room, and the leader glanced his way, pointing at Yukie. "Is that the woman who was with Wilson last night?"

"Uh, if you mean the big guy with the white hair and the eye patch, then yes," the young man said.

"You're sure?"

"Well, he answered the door in a robe, and she was still in bed, so I guess so. They seemed pretty happy with each other."

"Okay, then." The leader nodded, and…and one of his men shot the young man in the head. Nora cried out as blood and matter splattered out over the floor.

"Funny," the leader sat down next to Nora, shoving her over so he could look Yukie in the face at close range. "Sure, he's old and scarred and fucked up, but still, with all the money he's got, you're not what I'd have expected he'd pick for fun and games. Hah," he shook his head. "That's why you've been so hard to find. Okay, make sure you don't mark her face or hands, and don't touch anything in her purse. Our client wants her IDed right away."

"Before you proceed with your plan to murder and defile me, I believe it is worth pointing out that my companion is Nora Fries," Yukie said, still calm and tranquil. She picked up her tea and drank a swallow, noisy in the quiet café. "That is to say, she is the wife of my employer, Dr. Fries, or Mr. Freeze as he is better known. He will pay you better for her life than whoever sent you will for my death. He will also pay you whatever they are paying you for me."

"Tempting," the leader said after a moment's thought, "but no. That's no way to build up a rep. She'll just have to be collateral damage. Now—."

Yukie interrupted. "You will have very little time to trade on that reputation, because you will not have long to live. I don't know if my murder will cause Slade Wilson even a moment's grief, but you will have injured him in his pride, and that he will not countenance. You may scoff all you please, but not one of you—not one—would dare face him. Instead you came after me. He will make it a point of finding out who killed me and who hired you, and he will not stop until all those responsible are dead. Is your client paying you enough money to make dying worth it?"

She still held her tea cup, and now she took another sip, her eyes going from one man to another. "Yes, I _am_ unnervingly calm. Did you think you were the first to track me down? For that matter, did anyone tell you how I met him? We were both competing in a martial arts championship. I admit I am not the greatest hand-to-hand combat fighter in the world; that distinction belongs to Lady Shiva. I am not even in the top hundred, but I know, by sight and name, everyone who is and _none of them are in this room right now_."

Now Nora could practically smell the fear sweat on the men. Yukie continued. "I don't even bother telling Slade about incidents like this. I suggest that you walk away now. If you choose not to—there are eight of you to one of me and you have guns where I do not, so clearly this will be a case of self-defense and no jury will convict me."

"You do talk a good game," the leader admitted, "but like you said, we have guns, and then there's Mrs. Fries here. You won't—." He had laid both hands flat on the tabletop.

With that, Yukie put down her teacup, seized the knife, and stabbed it right through his hand into the table underneath. Blood spurted out, the man howled, and then things started happening very fast.

The men went for their guns, but when they tried to fire, nothing happened. Yukie was up. Her hands dove into her coat pockets and came out with… a pair of small wooden barbells? Then she began to dance. Her Huntingdon's like movements, for the first time, became something with flow and grace. A sidestep, a half-fouette devant—her arm flew out to elbow a man in the solar plexus and then her hand snapped up to jab him in the chin with the end of the barbell, twice. He went down. A leap en passant, to the next man…

That was how Nora saw it, with the eyes of a dancer and choreographer. She had only seen one martial arts movie in her life, when she and Victor had the power go out one humid August night, and that was _Silent Rage_, starring Chuck Norris. They only went to it because their apartment was unlivable without air conditioning and the movie theater was nice and cool. As movies went, it was, well, stupid, but she had been quite impressed with the choreography that went into the fight scene, and it _was_ correct and appropriate to call it choreography. Dance was the basis of all good movement, after all.

* * *

Meanwhile: Rose Wilson, AKA Ravager, was sitting in the break room of Titans Tower playing Candy Crush Saga on her phone, because it was actually non-deterministic polynomial-time hard, and that was important when you could see several moves into the future and were hardly ever surprised. She had never spent a penny on extra lives and was currently up to level 523. She was so absorbed that when her phone actually rang, she jumped, causing Tim Drake AKA Red Robin to glance up from his book.

The caller's name was S. Wilson. That was…really unexpected. She stared at it for several rings, wondering if she should answer or not, wondering what would happen if she did. She had figured out that he had only tried to kill her in order to get the Titans to accept her. Since then, she hadn't heard from him.

_If I answer this, I might regret it, but if I don't—I'll always wonder. Who am I kidding? If I don't and he really wants to get in contact with me, he'll find a way, and I'll like it even less_. Bowing to the inevitable, she answered.

"H-Hello?" she asked, wishing her voice didn't quaver.

"Hi," came the curt reply. "How are you doing?"

"Okay, I guess," she said. He would never apologize for what he did to her. Never. "Better some days than others. So, since I'm sure you're paying somebody to keep tabs on me, why are you really calling?"

"I've been seeing someone for a while now. I thought it was time you knew about her."

"Seeing somebody? You mean a psychiatrist?" she asked. "Or…a girlfriend?"

"The second," he replied, "Her name is Yukie."

Rose wasn't sure how to take the news. She knew her father hadn't exactly been a monk since her parents split up, and everybody knew about him and Vigilante—the photo of them kissing in public had made the tabloids, and then of course her mom had tried to kill them. She decided to try and be open minded about Yukie. "So—I guess she's Japanese, right? What's she like?"

"She's an expert in Jian Wu, but primarily a noncombatant. That's how I met her. She has a degree in finance. In addition to Japanese and English, she speaks Mandarin and French."

"Da—," Remembering that Tim was right there, she converted _Dad_ into "Dat's not what I meant. Those are_facts_. What's she _like_?"

"She's not shy but she's quiet. She likes Shakespearian tragedies because of Kurosawa's films. She never drinks coffee. She's very private. After two years, I still don't know exactly how old she is…and I can sleep, with her."

"Well, that last part's kind of the whole point, isn't it?" she sniped at him, because, well,_ewww_.

Her father was silent for a moment. "This was a mistake. Forget it." He hung up.

"Well, fine!" she snarled at the phone.

Tim propped his chin in his hand and narrowed his eyes. "There's only one person I know of who you're _that_angry at," he observed.

If there was anyone who understood what it was like to have a difficult father, (or father figure in his case), one who you loved, whose approval you needed but who you sometimes hated and often resented for helping make you who you were, it was Tim.

"Yeah, it was him. He has a girlfriend and wanted to boast about it."

She was ready to go back to Candy Crush, but Tim looked very thoughtful and sat up straight. "Really? How long has he been seeing her?"

"Um—at least two years, I think. Why?"

"Because the other day, I realized that, although he's been, uh, _working_ steadily," by which he meant assassinating people, "he hasn't gone psychotic for at least a couple of years. Think back. He's been…who he is, but he's been on top of things. Clear-headed. No innocents, no collateral damage. It was after your brother Grant died that he first lost it, right? And then after he lost your mother,_that_ was bad."

"You mean…you think that's the connection? That having somebody in his life sort of stabilizes him? _Vigilante_ didn't." Rose made the wrong move by mistake and ran out of lives. "Damn it!"

"He didn't bother to call you about Vigilante, did he? Maybe she wasn't important enough to him."

"And that means Yukie is…Oh. Oh, damn it!" She'd made more than one wrong move. "I think—I think I misunderstood him. He said he could sleep with her, and I thought—. He _wasn't _boasting about his sex life. He meant he could _sleep_ when he was with her. Damn it!" Quickly, she hit the redial, and waited. It went to voice mail, of course. He would answer only when he felt like it.

"Um. Hi, Dad. It's me. I—wanted to say I'm sorry. I misunderstood. I'd like to hear more about Yukie, and, uh, I'd like to meet her. If that's okay. I hope it's okay. Please call me back?" She hung up.

"I take it he had problems with insomnia?" Tim asked.

"Yes. He'd go days without sleeping. He practically needed a sensory deprivation chamber to get to sleep. Sometimes I wish I had one myself. It was… Grant was the only one of us who remembers him at all from before—hell, he was the only one of us _conceived_ before they administered the serum to Dad. When the North Koreans invaded our house, Joey was only five, and Dad didn't know she was pregnant with me yet, so Mom faked our deaths, and I didn't even meet him until I was six or so. He and Mom were on and off for years…I don't remember them ever being happy together. She was always afraid—afraid _of_ him, afraid _for_ all of us, and angry, too. He was angry and not always in control and her being afraid just made him worse, I think.

"Now I'm trying to imagine him in a healthy relationship, and…I think it's going to break my brain. I—does she know what he does? If she does and she's still seeing him, what does that say about her? If she doesn't then is this even really a relationship, or just him deluding her? What if this is one of those Harley Quinn things?"

"Uh—I think you're freaking out a little?" Tim tried to intervene.

"Damn right I'm freaking out a little! This woman could wind up being my stepmother!"

"…aaand hyperventilating while jumping ahead of things. Can you, uh, dial it down a little? What do you actually know about her?"

"Well, her name is Yukie, she knows Jian Wu, she has a degree in finance, speaks four languages—which is _pretty_ impressive but still miles behind him—and—how do Shakespeare's tragedies connect up with some director named Kurosawa, anyway?"

"Now that I can answer! _Throne of Blood_ is based on Macbeth, while _Ran_ is King Lear with sons instead of daughters. Both have samurai." Tim explained.

Rose's eyes grew wide. "Shakespeare…with _samurai_? This really exists, and you're not putting me on? It would make listening to all that iambic pentameter so worth it!"

"Well, they are in Japanese, so it's paraphrased, not word for word, and—."

"Why didn't anybody tell me about this before? Do you know how much easier that makes English class? I am streaming at least one of these tonight—I just—," She suddenly deflated. "I just hope this is for real, and that she's at least nice."

"Um-," Tim screwed his face up in thought. "Yukie-Do you know if she lives in Gotham City? A few days ago, I ran into a woman by the name of Yukime Kuwano. Yukie could be a nickname. She's Mr. Freeze's assistant."

Rose whirled to seize Tim by his collar, yanking him up off the chair. "Tell. Me. Everything."

"Ack," he choked, prying her hands loose. "It probably isn't the same woman. There has to be more than one woman named Yukie in the United States, let alone the world."

"You want to bet? If she works for Freeze, that ups the chance about a hundred times. Now talk!"

"Okay, you definitely need to cool it..."

* * *

Back in the café: "What—Why—How did—?" Nora tried, and paused to sort out which question to ask first. "Why didn't their guns work?"

Yukie wiped blood off one of her wooden barbells, and replied, "Because of this." Her hand went into her coat pocket and brought out a gadget. "It's a jammer which Doctor Fries invented. Unfortunately, it's short range and has to be pin-pointed on a particular device. A jammer which would emit a blanket field would also be too heavy to carry. That was why I kept talking for so long; I was using it on their guns. Do any of them seem dead?"

"Uh…" Nora knew how to check for a pulse, so she did. "No, they're all still breathing. Except for the man they shot."

"I wish I could have jammed that gun in time." She sounded as though she really regretted it.

"I've never seen someone die like that before," Nora looked down at his body. "It's so sudden and so final. One moment, a talking breathing person—the next—. We have to call the police."

"Yes. Given that the eight of them are all alive and that the Gotham police are quite used to scenes such as this, they won't even bother to take us down to the station. They'll just take our statements and take them away."

"You sound as though you have first-hand experience," Nora looked around at the wreckage of the café. Not so much wreckage as disorder, actually. Not much was broken.

"This is the…fourth time someone has come after me. However, before I call them—I would never encourage you to lie to the police, but it will be much easier if we…elect not to share why these bakabakashi chose us. _They_ certainly will not want to explain why."

From the tone and context, Nora guessed that 'bakabakashi' was a Japanese insult. (Which it was. Yukie was not given to peppering Japanese throughout her English, but sometimes you simply have to say what you mean in your first language because saying it in another language is never as satisfactory.)

"You mean don't mention that they were after you because of that guy you're seeing."

"Yes." Yukie went over to the ice machine and took a handful, which she rubbed over her red, flushed face.

"What did he do that they're after you?"

"I don't know precisely why, but it should suffice to say that he is a professional assassin." She bent her neck to ice the back of it, letting the melt drip down under her collar.

"A—You're kidd-You're _not _kidding. How did you get involved with a hired killer?"

Yukie smiled. "As I told them, it was at a martial arts championship, and we were the last two left standing. First I nearly cut his ear off and then he nearly slit my throat. I won on a technicality, but subsequent events illuminated exactly why he let me win."

"You mean he did it to get into your pants?" Nora asked.

Yukie grinned this time. "As you say."

"That night?" Her friend nodded. "_Yuki_e_!_" she half scolded, half teased.

"As I said before, I told myself, 'Just once'."

"It's all right. I, uh, kind of seduced Victor very suddenly myself, and at the time I didn't see us still being together at the end of the semester, let alone getting married. What are those wooden barbell things you were fighting with?"

"They're called yawara sticks, and they're why I don't have hands like a stevedore's. Very good for bone breaks and pressure point strikes. I prefer wood over metal or plastic. They don't set off metal detectors and they're not obviously weapons. Now—I think they must have shut the café staff in the freezer. Can you let them out while I call the police?"

"Of course," Nora said. This was like the time the lead set designer for the ballet had that accident with the nail gun, she decided. It made a horrible, gory mess, but panicking wouldn't have done any good and probably would have made things worse. Sometimes you had to suck it up and deal with it. Once you decided that, everything fell into place.

Something had fallen into place inside her as well. Watching Yukie in action— someone as disadvantaged as Nora herself was in her movement—had wakened in her a resolve. _Even if I can't return to classical ballet, I can still dance. With time, with determination, I will make myself into something new_.

* * *

A/N: Bakabakashi means 'idiot'. I know that originally Rose was the daughter Slade had with Lilian Worth, a Cambodian prostitute, but in the New 52 she is the youngest child he had with Adeline. That may simply have been an error on the part of DC. Anyhow, I'm going with it.

So, my pal Tev left a review last chapter that I thought made a good point, which resulted in the middle part of this chapter. It's a trial run. (I have her permission to quote this here.)

_'While I like what you are doing with Nora here, it does seem as though this story is evolving away from the original concept. These things happen, but it does mean this is barely an Arkham fic at all at this point._

_This is just a suggestion, and since I am hooked, I will keep reading whatever you do with it, but since Slade mentioned telling his daughter about Yukie, and IIRC, she is/was/who the hell knows now since the New 52 is making mincemeat of seventy-five years of canon/ a member of the Teen Titans, maybe you should throw them into the mix and move this over into one of the Titan archives? You might have to go back and work them into the story earlier, but it could be worth the time and effort to establish this in a category where it fits better.'_

My other great pal, Swordstitcher, has also pointed out that I'm writing about villains/anti-heroes who are lesser known among Bat-fans, which translates to fewer readers, but I know those readers I have are very into it and go back to reread chapters several times. Is this a fair and reasonable change to make to this story? I might have to take it down and repost chapter by chapter after a rewrite. Any opinions and insights would be welcome.


	11. Victor, Rose, Yukie: Longing

Victor Fries waited in his laboratory for a call that did not come. _What if Yukie cannot make Nora understand? _He told himself his fears were groundless. His assistant was adept at smoothing things out; she had done so for him for years, keeping the peace between him and the Rogues. Yet the hours passed and still there was no call. It began to snow.

Finally, just when he managed to divert himself with a book, he heard the outer door to the facility unlock, and then the inner door irised open.

"—and that's how you get in down here. I have never brought anyone here, incidentally. It would be a breach of both trust and security." Yukie said.

"It'll take me a few tries before I can unlock it on my own," came that familiar, well-loved voice. "Brrr, it's colder in here than it is out there."

"Nora!" He abandoned his book and hastened to the entryway. "Yukie, why bring her in down here? This isn't how I meant it to go."

Yukie raised a hand as she slipped past on the way to her own quarters, then silently pointed at Nora.

"Because if we're going to have a life together, then I need to know everything and get to go everywhere," Nora said firmly. "No secrets, Victor. Even if you think it's for my own good."

"Nora, I—." She was _here_, with snowflakes dusting her hat and her coat, and she was lovely, so lovely. "If you can forgive me, it is more than I deserve."

"You better believe it, so you have to get to work on deserving it, buddy," she said, poking him in the chest with a gloved figure. Dropping the playful pose, she turned serious. "I won't lie and say I wasn't upset when I found out what you did. I never asked you to get obsessed or to devote your life to finding a cure. I never wanted you to bury yourself in research—in fact, I wanted the opposite. Of course you'll say you did it out of love for me. I have never doubted you loved me. I only wish _you_ loved you as much as I do. That was your cue to hug me, by the way," she added.

He was not wearing an environmental suit, but she had on a winter coat. "I'm afraid this is going to be quick," he said, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin briefly on her head.

"Heh_, that_ was what you said the day I stole your sock," she murmured. When they parted, she caught his eyes and fixed them with her own. "Victor, I don't want to make any promises or any decisions right now or for the foreseeable future. I think too much has happened too fast, and until I'm more grounded—well, can you be patient with me? I warn you, I'm going to be freaked out sometimes. I'm likely to cry at any time, and—do you think you can cope?"

"Yes," he gasped. "I can. Because it's you."

* * *

There were things the serum helped with, such as picking up languages and thinking strategically, and then there were things it didn't, like essay writing. Rose finally had a topic, though: From _Thane of Cawdor to Throne of Blood: Comparing and Contrasting Shakespeare's Macbeth with Kurosawa's Kumonosu-Jo_. The biggest difference she could see was having the Lady Macbeth character be pregnant, which gave 'Macbeth' a perfect motive for doing away with the character who would 'be king hereafter', so she went into detail about it. The essay was due very soon, December 23rd, the day before winter break.

Already she was starting to pick up some Japanese, just from watching the movie, because the language center of her brain went to work on it without her conscious mind getting involved, the same way a preverbal baby's would. Not much as yet, just that sentences that ended with 'ka' were always questions, things like that. The written language would take actual study.

Her phone rang. It was him_. I have to remember this: He's one of the most charismatic and manipulative people alive. Just because he's my father doesn't cancel that out. I have to be wary._

"Hi, Dad," she said. "Uh—I just finished watching Throne of Blood. At the end, did you know they didn't do any special effects with the arrows? I was so amazed that they could do that scene without computers that I looked it up. They hired professional archers. All of it was real and live on set. No wonder Toshiro Mifune looked so harrowed in that scene. No pun intended."

"Hah," he uttered in appreciation. "So, what else did you want to know?"

"About Yukie? Well—what's her full name? Where does she live, what does she do, about how old is she, what's she look like—stuff like that."

"Yukime Kuwano is her full name and she lives in the Gotham area." **_Not _**_the same woman? Take** that**, Tim!_ "If I say she's a personal assistant, it would give you the wrong idea. Let's say she's someone else's Wintergreen and leave it at that. As for her age, I'd say mid thirties. She's tall for a Japanese woman, about five-seven, built lean. She's not what most people would call beautiful, but most people are idiots."

"Does she—does she know who you are? I mean, really know?" Rose tensed up, waiting for an answer.

"She knew before we ever met."

"How does she deal with it?"

He took his time answering. "She doesn't get off on the danger—it doesn't bother her, but it's no thrill either. She does what she can to avoid the notoriety—never demands to go where she can be seen on my arm. She's indifferent to the money. From the very start it's been, unspoken, that if I invite her, I make the arrangements and pay. If she invites me, she arranges things and pays. I have never given her a dime. She's never drug me past a shop window and cooed over something by way of a hint, either. She's happy just to be with me."

His words came out as though they were fighting their way to the surface. She wondered if that was genuine feeling or some subtle manipulation on his part.

"Oh. But what about…what you do? She knows what you do, right? Not just the bodyguard stuff, but—the rest."

"That I kill people for money? Yes."

"How does she deal with that?"

"Surprisingly," he replied. "Her attitude is something like that of a person who's strongly against animal cruelty, but not to the point of going vegan."

That took a minute for Rose to work out. "So…it's sort of like…it's okay to eat meat as long as the animal had a decent life and doesn't suffer at the end?"

"That's exactly what I meant. As long as an assassin practices the appropriate professional ethics, she's fine with it."

"Oookay. I don't really know how to take that, but—," Rose changed the subject. "When can I meet her?"

"We're leaving for Japan in a couple of weeks—."

"You're taking her to Japan?"

"Actually,_she's_ taking _me_ to Japan." There was a hint of smugness in his voice when he said that. "I've been there before, but not to see the sights. We'll be leaving January ninth, and we should be back the first week of March, give or take."

"From January to March—wow, that's a long trip. So, we'll meet up over the holidays, then?" Rose asked.

"No. Better to wait until we get back."

"Why? That's such a long time." She could hear a slight whiny note entering her voice, and suppressed it.

"After eight weeks, we'll know whether we can live together or not. If we can't, there's no point in you meeting her. If we can, then there'll be plenty of time."

"Oh…Wait a minute. Can she take that much time off work? What's her employer going to do without her?"

"Her work for him is done and over with, and she doesn't have another job lined up immediately. Two years ago, Ra's Al Ghul offered her a blank check to work for him and left it open-ended. If there's ever going to be a time to persuade her I'm a better deal, it's now, before he can renew his offer."

"Uh—are you talking about head-hunting her or wooing her?" Rose asked, confused.

"There's a difference?"

"I shouldn't have to explain it," she told her father. "So she's taking you to Japan? You'd better be getting her something amazing for Christmas, that's all I can say."

"I haven't gotten her anything for Christmas. We've never exchanged gifts, for one thing, and for another, she's not Christian."

"What? Dad! Sheesh! Don't you know _anything_ about women? I don't care what faith she is or what you've done on other holidays. She's taking you to Japan for two months! If you're serious about her, you _have_ to get her something, and it should be the equivalent or even better. I mean it!"

He _laughed_. Her father, Slade Wilson, Deathstroke, the Terminator _laughed_, and it was a _real_ laugh, not mocking or sarcastic. "Then what do you suggest?"

"A diamond necklace. No, a diamond necklace _and_ matching earrings. Or a new car. Whichever you think she'd like better. I advise jewelry, though."

"I've never seen her wear jewelry set with stones," he said. "She might not like them."

"Well, she's your girlfriend, not mine. Whatever you think looks like her, then. Make it something she can wear often, not just for fancy. And, uh, Dad?" She paused.

"Yes?" he prompted.

"I'm happy for you. I hope you have a really good time in Japan, and that everything works out."

"Thanks, sweetheart. Take care of yourself, Rosie." He hung up.

Rosie. He hadn't called her that since she was ten. _That was the longest conversation I ever had with him—and the most positive. I wish I knew whether this was for real or if he's just manipulating me again. Of course, even if he is telling the truth, he could still be manipulating me with it. But the way he talked about her—that she wasn't what most people call beautiful, and that she loves him for him… I hope this is for real. But I have to wait ten weeks to find out! _

She was only sixteen. To her, ten weeks was forever. It was intolerable. But maybe, if she played her cards right, she wouldn't have to...

She didn't realize someone overheard her. Someone with green skin.

* * *

_Of all those descended from me, you were the dearest to me, because whatever we are, we are the same. Your skin, your faintness in the heat, are mine. As time passes, you will be taken for your little sister's younger sister, and then for her daughter, and even perhaps her granddaughter. You may have to move and change your name several times. I did._

_We are not like other people. What we are, I do not know, but I was told, years ago, that if I wanted to know what I was and why, I should give up every earthly tie and ascend Mount Hakkoda before the plum trees blossom in the spring. _

_I never went there. Perhaps you will find the courage I never had. I love you, my little snow princess. Grandma._

Yukie read the message again, then put the note away. She looked at the little alcove she had set up in her quarters, at the pine branch in the black lacquer vase—and at the black iron incense burner next to it. It was in the shape of a woven rattan ball, one of a set of four for the four seasons of the year. Black iron was for winter. The spring burner was a cherry blossom design in silver; the summer one, bronze lotuses, and the autumn burner, maple leaves in a beautiful copper-silver alloy called shibuichi. Pulling out her phone, she called up the woodcut image Ra's Al Ghul had sent her that morning.

There was Miss Carnation, the beautiful courtesan of two hundred years past, in her luxurious furisode, a black iron incense burner in the shape of a rattan ball at her feet. To her eyes, the burner in the image and the burner her grandmother had given her were identical.

The same incense burner, the same obi, the same kimono…

_How old **were** you when you died, Grandmother? How often did you move and change your name?_

_What did I inherit besides some of your old things?_

Her grandmother had died in the intolerable heat of a Kyoto summer when the air conditioning failed. Heatstroke, of course. Yukie might well die the same way. She had come close to it twice.

_Well, I have brought Victor and Nora together, and now the rest is up to them. I can give up my ties to the elder brother/father I never had, and do so with a whole heart. I can donate the embryos to childless Asian couples seeking a daughter, and that undoes another tie_.

That left one last earthly tie. Slade.

_I must bid farewell to him, too._

_I must._

_I will…_

A/N: Yukime literally means 'Lady Snow' or 'Snow Princess'. My thanks to my reviewers: paisleyluv96, fandelivres, and of course, Tev! I think you were very right.


	12. Yukie: Tea With The Demon's Head

When one decided at the last minute to fly from Gotham City to Reno, Nevada on December 23rd, one had to take what one could get, and today that involved changing planes in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, the airline had just announced her connecting flight was going to be delayed. Yukie had her tablet and was never bored as long as she could read, but before she could even open the book file, her phone rang.

It was Ra's Al Ghul. In flawless Japanese he said, "Miss Kuwano, it would give a very old man great pleasure if you could take tea with him in the Ordway Park Garden Teahouse at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory…in half an hour. You need not worry about missing your flight. It will be delayed until you board. There is a car and driver waiting for you outside Terminal 2."

She was not terribly surprised. This was clearly the follow up to the email message he'd sent several days before. "I am greatly honored," she replied in the same language. "Of course I shall send Mr. Wilson a message about the delay."

"Of course," Ra's said, with no surprise in his voice. Yet she was sure no earthly consideration could keep Ra's Al Ghul from doing as he pleased, not even the oblique threat of Deathstroke's vengeance. Therefore she did not tell Slade who or why her plane would be late. If Ra's did not kill her, she would have to explain everything, and if he did, she would either be well on her way to her next existence and not care, or she would come back as an extremely vengeful ghost, in which case Slade would be the least of his worries. She was betting on the latter.

The car was a Rolls Royce, the driver competent, respectful, and largely silent. Minneapolis was decked out for the holiday, covered in snow, and therefore looked its best. The conservatory grounds were especially beautiful, and the groundskeepers had taken the trouble of sweeping the paths to the tea house in the Japanese style garden. In Yukie's opinion, American attempts at recreating Japanese gardens were inherently doomed to failure, even if they hired master gardeners from Japan, and the reason was that they_ tried_ too hard. Instead of telling the master gardener to design_** a**_ garden, they told them they wanted a _Japanese_ garden, and that meant cramming every element of a Japanese garden into the available space.

Ra's had not gone to all this trouble to invite her to take tea in the British style, with cucumber sandwiches and cream scones. No, this was to be according to the ritual of the tea ceremony, which was closer to a religious rite. (Hopefully this was to be an informal tea, rather than the full four hour ritual.)

The principle behind the Way of Tea was this: Life is brief and uncertain, therefore we must take joy in the moment and in our friends, for we never know when or if we will see them again. Making tea for them with one's own hands, sitting and sharing something sweet like fruit to symbolize the good things in life before drinking the tea, which is bitter and symbolic of the miseries of life, shows the love one bears them. One could bring the Way of Tea into every aspect of life, into every meal cooked, every load of laundry, every act done for another person. Enjoy the now, for now is all we ever have.

Entering the tea house, she changed out of her boots into the provided slippers, washed her hands and rinsed her mouth in the stone basin of water provided in the waiting room, in accordance with custom. The water was still warm, a thoughtful touch on a frigid day. Then she bent down to enter through the low-linteled door, symbolic of equality—everyone humbled themselves before sharing the ritual, great and small alike.

Ra's was already within, and he greeted her with a silent bow as the host. She returned it, and knelt upon the floor. The room was austere and unfurnished, as a tea room should be, and the only heat source was the hearth for heating water. No matter; she did not mind the cold as other people did. As he began cleaning the utensils, she looked around the room.

There was always a place in a tea house for a scroll and a vase—the scroll could be either a painting or a piece of calligraphy, perhaps a poem to meditate on, and the vase was always for a seasonal flower. This being December, the flower was a branch of holly, and instead of a scroll—it was the print of Miss Carnation.

"Yes," Ra's said, interpreting her slight indrawn breath when she saw it. "I knew your grandmother. Not in the Biblical sense, I assure you. You, of course, know how old_ I_ am said to be."

"It is said you are centuries old," she said. "However, many things are said, both true and false. I do not know which this is."

"It is true. I appear to be a vigorous fifty. I am, however, a vigorous four hundred and forty-eight. Possibly four hundred and fifty-three. The years were not kept track of so diligently then as now. As you may imagine, I travel extensively, and it was upon my first visit to Japan that I met your celebrated grandmother. She was then a courtesan at the Bower of Fragrances. No common prostitute, not she, but a very elite entertainer who had but one patron at a time and kept him a year or more. She was about to retire and marry her last patron, for she was with child. Whether it was his or not, I do not know, but as it turned out to be a boy and he had no other sons, he was delighted to claim paternity. That was in the year…1809. Possibly 1810."

The utensils were now clean. He picked up a bowl full of tangerines and presented it to her with both hands. "Please. Have some."

The fruit glowed in the thin winter sunlight. She took one and began peeling it. "Thank you." Conversation was not part of the ceremony at that point, but he had initiated it.

He nodded. "Thank you for not insisting that could not be true."

"I hope I would never be so boring. There are stranger things in this world."

"You are not boring." Next he took up the canister of green tea powder and measured out three scoops. "I did not meet her again until 1922. She was then—or, I should say, again, working as a courtesan in the Jade Moon House in Beijing. We recognized one another, and I do not know which of us was more surprised. I have met a few natural long-lifers over the years, but she had not. We had a very long and fascinating conversation, during which she told me about her son—about her first son, I should say, for she had several. He was, in fact, her first child, and because she was about fifty when he was born, she thought he would be her last and only. She looked no older than you when I met her first. Or when I met her in Beijing, for that matter.

"She was her patron's third wife, polygamy being a common practice. As you might imagine, despite her status in the household as mother of the heir, her husband's first wife did her best to make life unpleasant for her. After a few years, she allowed the first wife to adopt her son for certain financial compensation, and moved to Kyoto. This was necessary because if she stayed any longer, they would have noticed she was not aging. That pattern repeated itself with variations over the next hundred years, and she had five more sons with various fathers by 1922." He poured water into the tea bowl and began whisking the brew into a froth.

Yukie ate a segment of tangerine, savoring the tartness on her tongue. "Yet my mother was born in 1949. As far as I knew, she was my grandmother's only child."

"So she was—or rather, she was the only child of your grandmother's last marriage, and her only daughter. I kept track of your grandmother after meeting her a second time. When your mother was of marriageable age, I arranged for her to marry your father—who was the descendant of your granddam's first son. Five generations removed made them very distant cousins, well beyond the stigma of incest. In promoting that match, I hoped to recreate the gene complex which produced your grandmother in the first place." He looked out the window of the tea house, at the children dashing around the gardens in the snow.

"Longevity and fertility rarely march together," he commented. "One sacrifices quantity of life for quality of life. I myself fathered only a handful of children, and of them, only one was born sound in both body and mind, my daughter Talia. Or so I thought, for Talia has done a very foolish thing.

"Up until the last few decades of the last century, there was only one way of bringing new human beings into the world, by conceiving them and gestating them in a woman's belly. These days, they can take the healthy ovum of one woman, insert the DNA of another into it, mix it with the seed of a man who may never have met, let alone touched, either one, put the resultant embryo into the womb of a third woman, and then give the child over to a fourth woman who will call herself its mother, and like as not she will hire a fifth to raise it for her.

"Now the technology exists that cuts the human element out of the gestation, and the child conceived in a test tube may spend nine months in it. What might go wrong with that, even if the child be whole and healthy physically?"

Yukie did not see the reason for the abrupt change of subject, but she was not about to be rude. "I would guess, and I guess as a woman and not a scientist, that a gestation chamber differs from a womb. In the womb, a child hears and feels his mother's heartbeat, hears her voice, the voice of his father, if he lives with them. It feels tremors when she walks, it kicks and feels her flesh give, it absorbs myriad sensations from the world around it, filtered through her body. Even a deaf child will still feel sound as physical vibration. Such is the common human experience.

"Without that—would such a child feel any connection to the human race? I would guess that such a child would suffer from an inability to bond to others, an inability to feel empathy, and perhaps be unable to love."

Ra's Al Ghul nodded. "Very well—and accurately—reasoned. Your grandmother was both an excellent wife and mother. She was nurturing by nature."

"I know it well. She left me a letter to be read after she died. In it she said that of all those descended of her, I alone was like her. This is what she meant, I think. You are not my father, but you are, in a sense, my progenitor. To what end was I conceived and born, sir?"

"Not to an end," he said, "but a beginning, shall we say?" He held out the bowl full of tea.

She took it in both hands, admiring the shape of it. It had a silky ivory glaze over roughly shaped clay, haphazardly uneven and imperfect, yet beautiful. "Such an evocative piece," she said. Appreciation of the bowl and other utensils was part of the ceremony. "I shall think of all the distinguished people who must have drunk from it before me." She turned it carefully before she set her lips to the rim and drank deeply.

Lowering the bowl, she wiped the place where her mouth came into contact with it, and passed it back to him. Ordinarily there would have been several other guests, but they were alone there in an ocean of silence. "Yet I am an end," she pointed out, "as I am ungainly, defective and sterile."

"No more ungainly and defective than this bowl, which exists to demonstrate the beauty in imperfection. And, if you are indeed like your grandmother, you may not be sterile after all. You may simply be too young as yet." He drank, and she watched his Adam's Apple bob in his throat.

"Do you think to beg a child of me?" she asked. "Or ask to give me two?" Those she said in English: it was a paraphrase of a line from Shakespeare's Henry the Sixth, part 3.

"I have already a child of yours," he said. "Twenty of them, in fact."

It was good that she was not holding the tea bowl at that moment, because if she did not drop it, she would have been tempted to throw it at his head. "My daughters!"

"Your near-clones," he corrected. "That was a very useful inspiration of yours. Do not fear. I will be most careful with them, and choose their families from among my most trustworthy followers. You yourself signed them away for whoever might ask for them, and I made a most sizeable donation to the clinic. Or, if you so choose, I will give you an opportunity to earn them back."

"But…but I am so _tired_," she said. "I have worked for twelve years without more than three days off in a row. I want—I _need_ to rest."

He passed her the bowl again, and observed her closely. "I see. Well, I can give you…six months, shall we say? Rest, recuperate, enjoy the company of Mr. Wilson, and your upcoming visit to Japan—and then we shall talk again."

She drank. What more could she do? Yet a thought occurred to her even as she swallowed the bitter brew. "What do you know about Mount Hakkoda?" she asked.

"Mount Hakkoda?" he repeated, and his bewilderment was both evident and convincing. "As I recall…there was an infamous military disaster there, was there not? Why? Is there something I should know about it?"

"No," she said, lowering her eyes. "My grandmother never went there, but she always wanted to. That is all_._" _ So Ra's Al Ghul has nothing to do with whatever I might find there. That makes sense—he may have had something to do with my existence, but Grandmother came into the world unbidden by him._ "Did she ever tell you anything about her parents or her people?"

"Very little, in all truth," he admitted. "She was born a peasant in what would become Shiga prefecture. She became a courtesan in her teens in order to help support her family. That is all I know."

"Thank you," Yukie murmured. "Through your reminiscences, I feel closer to her in spirit than ever." She took a second tangerine. "Such a beautiful winter day, and how golden this fruit is!"

* * *

A/N: Ra's Al Ghul is of course thinking of his grandson, Damian Wayne, when he talks about how foolish Talia has been and refers to a child gestated in a tube.

Prostitution is said to be the world's oldest profession, and therefore, statistically speaking, we all probably have one somewhere in our family trees. A courtesan occupies a rung somewhere between a geisha, who is an artist with a 'patron' who pays the bills and enjoys her favors, and a high-class call girl. Courtesans were expected to be able to liven up a party with conversation, music, party games, and witty remarks. Many wrote poetry that survives until this day. They also had long-term liaisons rather than turning tricks on a nightly basis.

I have never been to Minneapolis, and got all my details about the garden and tea house from their web site. However, I have read _The Way of Tea_ by Sen No Rikyu. My explanation does not do it justice.

To my reviewers: Thanks so much! Aww, I'm sorry the chapter was so short, fandelivres. This one is a little longer, and the next is already half written. Swordstitcher, I _love_ being accused of brilliance. Thank you. Tev, right back at you, girl!


	13. Slade: Questionable Motives

Before they left the Imperial Hotel (room 1625), Yukie had asked him, "Do you ski?"

"Yes," he replied. "Why?"

"There are several excellent ski resorts in Japan. I'll book some time at one of them toward the end of the trip, now that I know you will enjoy it too."

"So you ski. What else do you do?" He was a touch annoyed by that, because his first thought was '_We could have been doing things like that all along_.' In addition to having sex, that is, not instead of, but that was the problem with going to bed with someone immediately and only finding out about them later.

"In terms of winter sports, a better question would be, what don't I do? Consider my employer. I ski, I skate, I snowboard, I snowshoe, I snowmobile. It is essentially a job requirement when one works for Dr. Fries."

He chuckled at that. "I never considered that."

With that in mind, he invited her to spend a few days over Christmas in the Lake Tahoe area, well known for its ski resorts. She accepted, saying she would rather give the Fries time to themselves over the holiday, and he made the reservations.

What he did not tell her was that he actually owned a house on the Nevada side of the lake, which was where he was right then, showering in the master bathroom after a (by his standards) moderate workout.

At about 8700 square feet of living space, it was neither the largest nor the smallest property he possessed. However, at less than five years old it was the newest, and it came with nearly a hundred feet of private waterfront and its own pier. Architecturally speaking, it was stunning, as most of the walls were glass, affording an unparalleled view of the lake. From the road, it was unimpressive—all that showed at the top of the cliff was the garage and an entryway door. Once inside, you had the choice of taking either the spiraling glass staircase or the private elevator down into the house itself. The first level down was a guest suite with a private bath.

Below that was the gym and spa with sauna; on the other side of the stairwell were the kitchen, living room and dining room, with a free standing fireplace in the center and a balconied terrace for dining outside on nice days. The next level down had the laundry room and linen closet on one side—the laundry room had two washers and two dryers, plus a thirty inch flat screen should watching towels tumble grow tedious. On the other side was the master suite, including a library/office and a bathroom with both a walk-in shower and a soaking tub.

Underneath that was the reason he wished he had owned that house while the kids were still small—two more bedrooms separated by what the architect called the garden room. It would have made a great playroom, although since it also had a door leading out to the path down to the lake, they would have had to keep it locked all the time until he was sure the kids wouldn't drown no matter the conditions.

The previous owners had asked for thirty-nine million for it, two years before; he paid thirty. It was a buyer's market at the time.

Other than the stools at the kitchen counter, the house had come unfurnished. Slade had added only five pieces of furniture to it: three chairs, one table, and a bed. Aside from essentials like a few clothes, towels and such, the only thing he brought there was part of his ever-growing weapons collection, and racks to store it on. Those he kept in the basement.

He had never brought anyone there. Nor was he going to bring Yukie there, not yet. If things did not work out, he would prefer she didn't know where he lived, even if he rarely used it. If they did work out, the Tahoe area had very mild summers. In August, the hottest month of the year, the average daytime temperature was only about seventy-five degrees, and freezing temperatures had been reported every month of the year. An ideal climate for someone prone to heatstroke.

Turning off the shower, he took a towel from the heated rack and rubbed his head briskly before drying off the rest of him. Returning to the bedroom, he discovered his phone was buzzing. Rose had texted him.

'_jst turnd n my essay on Macbeth/Throne of bl%d &amp; my Tcha wz impressed already! Plz thk Yukie 4 me.'_

He might be fluent in every living language spoken on the face of the earth, but text speak took a moment to interpret and that annoyed him. He replied with one word. _'Why?_'

'_cuz i nevr wud hav watchD it f U hadn't told me bout her_.'

'_Will do_.' he sent back. '_I trust your essay wasn't written in text speak_.'

'_nvr! wot did U git her 4 Xmas? snd pic, plz!_'

He smiled to himself. He knew telling his daughter about Yukie would get her to talk to him again. She was a long way from trusting him, but the lines of communication were now open and that was a start. Going over to his suitcase, he found the black leather jewelry case, opened it, took a photo of the chain and earrings inside it, and sent it to her.

A few moments later he got the reply. '_gud choice. wot karat gold?_'

'_Twenty'_, he sent.

'_hI test! snd pic of her warin it, okay?_'

He deciphered that as more of a request for a picture of Yukie than anything else.

'_Will do. No more for now. I have to go pick her up. Merry Christmas, Rosie_.' He had sent her a new laptop, to be delivered on Christmas Eve.

'_U2, Dad!_'

He smiled again, and went into the closet to dress. In Gotham he usually wore a business suit and tie, but Lake Tahoe was a more casual area, and he chose more appropriate attire.

Yukie would be exactly what he needed to tie Rose to him again: someone she could trust even when she didn't trust him.

From the hour they met, Yukime Kuwano had reminded him of someone. Not a former lover nor any other woman on any side of the never-ending battle among the costumes, but still—she was reminiscent of someone he had known. Irritatingly so. It wasn't until their third date, the one where someone fired a mortar round into the restaurant, that he realized who.

He was face down on the bed and naked at the time, while she was straddling his waist. Not as a part of any kinky game, but because there were splinters of glass embedded in his shoulders, and she was painstakingly removing each one before his skin sealed up over them. Moreover, neither the bombing nor removing shrapnel fazed her. A very cool-headed, tough-minded woman.

Then it hit him. Wintergreen. Obviously she looked nothing like him, and it wasn't a matter of personality, either, but some deeper, harder to define quality which people called character. There were five words on Wintergreen's tombstone in addition to his name and the dates of his birth and death, a quote Slade recalled from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson: _**Steel-True and Blade-Straight**_. Nothing could have summed up his character better. Loyal, steadfast, devoted, and trustworthy—all that was honorable and true.

Slade had never expected to find anyone of like character again, but there she was. At the time, Yukie had spent ten years in Freeze's employ, quietly and invisibly providing vital support behind the scenes. Even though Freeze was relatively unimportant on the world stage, she had politely yet firmly turned down Ra's Al Ghul's offer. Steel-true and blade-straight…

Up until that point, she had simply been a woman he found unusually attractive, interesting to talk to, and good in bed. It was like asking a mineralogist to take a look at an odd pebble he found on vacation and brought back as a whim, only to find out it was a diamond. The things he had learned about her since then, especially exactly why she had entered the Jian Wu competition in the first place, only confirmed her as a diamond of the highest quality.

What was he prepared to do in order to have someone like Wintergreen straightening out their lives and making everything run smoothly again? Whatever it took.

However, the fact that they were already intimately involved meant that he couldn't simply hire her, which could complicate matters.

Now dressed, he climbed the stairs to the garage. He had rented a car rather than use the Range Rover Sport he kept there, lest she put two and two together. The drive to the airport in Reno was uneventful, and Yukie was glad to see him, if a little tired and subdued after her delayed flight, but on the way back, they got stuck in traffic. Very stuck.

"I thought they never had traffic jams out here," he grumbled.

"It's true I would rather not be caught in one," Yukie observed, "but we are not under any time constraints, are we?"

"No, if we miss our dinner reservation, there's always room service," he said, shifting down gear again after inching another few dozen feet.

"Then, given that all else is comparable, would you rather stay in an inn that has been in operation for eight hundred years with traditional Japanese rooms, even if it means communal bathing, or a modern hotel with Western beds and en suite shower-baths?" She pulled out her tablet and called up a site. "Most traditional inns have private baths now, but a few do not."

"What's the point of going all the way to Japan and living just as we do here? I'll opt for the eight hundred year old inn, thank you. Ah—that reminds me. The first week of January, I have work lined up in Eastern Europe. Someone wants to houseclean for the New Year. It makes no sense for me to fly back to the States on the sixth or seventh only to fly out again on the ninth."

"Thank you for telling me," She worked for a few moments, "Would it make more sense to rendezvous in Paris or in Moscow?"

"Paris," he decided. "For one thing, you speak French, not Russian, and for another," he chuckled, "I'll be persona non grata in Moscow by then."

Although it took them forty minutes to go less than half a mile, they managed to do so without so much as a cross word or a dirty look. He wondered if she understood how unusual that was, and she caught him watching her and smiling.

"What is it?" she asked. "Have I a smudge on my face?"

"No," he replied. "I was just trying to think of another woman I know who wouldn't be doing a slow burn by now while I ground my teeth into powder. I can't decide whether you're strange for being the exception or whether all other women I know are irrational. Adeline would have picked a fight about something unrelated, and we'd be at the point where we weren't speaking at all."

"Being stuck is tedious enough without quarreling as well," Yukie observed. "But I was thinking much the same of you. The only time _you_ ever shout at me is if someone is shooting at us and you want me to duck. By this time, if you were my ex-husband, then I would…"

"Would have what?" he prompted. "You can't start a statement like that and not finish it."

"If I let myself talk about someone I broke up with, then someday I might talk about you." She finished in a very quiet voice.

He laughed. "How about we issue a statute of limitations? Ten years after I'm out of your life, you can say whatever you want to about me as long as it's true. Deal?"

"That seems fair," she allowed. "Then…if I were trapped like this with my ex-husband, I would be very close to physically ill. He—from the very start it was not good. In a traditional marriage, a marriage like my parents, the man is never home except to sleep. He works all week and then socializes with his coworkers. On the weekend he sleeps and recovers. All he does in the marriage is make babies and money, while the wife takes care of everything else. She decides where they will live, which house they will buy, how to invest their money, where the children go to school, how much spending money he will get, whether he can have a mistress and how much he can spend on her….

"I could have handled that. Even if I had to take care of his mother as well, because I liked her, and she could have taught me how to handle his moods, but she lived with his married sister. Instead, the brewery was right across the yard from the house, so he was _always there_.

"I would make breakfast, clean the house, make myself a cup of tea and sit down to, to…read a magazine or something, and he would come in and shout about how it was no wonder the place was a dump, since that was how I spent all my time, and throw the magazine across the room. Or I would be putting away his clean laundry, and he would upend the drawers on the floor because he didn't like how I folded things. The same if he didn't like his lunch. Then in the mid afternoon he'd…he'd want," She cast about for the right word. "He would want to have sex fast and go back to work."

"You mean a quickie," Slade helped.

"Yes, a quickie, and even if he were a wonderful lover, it wasn't possible to be _responsive_ after that. He kept tabs on when I left the house and came back, and demanded I account for every moment I was gone. I learned not to show when I was upset, because if he saw something bothered me, he would do it more, but behind my face, I would feel sick. We were like two fish in a bowl too small for us, so the water was dirty and I could not breathe."

"I don't know what you'd call it in Japan, but what you're describing is spousal abuse in the United States," he observed.

"In Japan…these things are not talked about. And it is _always_ the woman's fault," Yukie snarled. "It's _her_ job to make the marriage work, to be good and behave so he doesn't act that way. I knew I did not deserve to be treated like that, but in my heart…The head can know one thing while the heart believes another. I was also very young then. I wanted to make it work. I tried to make it work."

"How young?" He liked seeing that she could be angry about _something_, and it was illuminating to learn why she thought he was wonderful. In comparison, he was.

"I was twenty-one when we married. He was thirty-seven. It is, or was, normal for such an age gap between spouses. A man has to be able to support a family." That also explained, first, how old she was: twenty-one plus three years of marriage equaled twenty-four, plus twelve years with Freeze meant she was about thirty-six, and second, why _his_ age made no difference to her.

"Did he ever strike you?" Slade asked.

"Never. There were times he would have liked to, I think, but it never came to that."

"You never hit him?"

"No. If he had struck the first blow, I might have."

"Hmm—We've been together two years now. What don't you like about me?" he asked.

"Nothing!" she answered immediately.

"Now you're putting me on. There has to be something. Snoring, sleeping with a weapon under the pillow…"

"You can't help that you snore, and I am quite used to weapons. There is that face you make when you are confronted with a meatless meal—there, you're making it now! But even that I find more amusing than anything else."

"Marry me." he joked. "You find my profession unobjectionable, even honorable-."

"Not to mention recession-proof. People will always be willing to pay to have someone killed." she added, flashing a smile.

"- and there is nothing you don't like about me. It's clear to me I'm never going to do better than you, so there's nothing else to be done."

She made a face as though she smelled something bad. "No, thank you. There is a poem that says everything I feel. 'Stifling yawns, stifling myself: the sadness of being a wife'."

"If that's how you feel, I suppose there's nothing I can do but this," he reached into his inner jacket pocket, pulled out the jewelry case, and tossed it into her lap. "Merry Christmas. If you don't like it, you can blame my daughter. She insisted."

"You…told your daughter about me?" Yukie's brows drew together in the middle. "What did you say?"

"That I'd been seeing someone for a while, who you were, things like that. That we were taking a trip together. She told me to thank you for getting her interested in Kurosawa's Shakespeare adaptations, because she did an essay about one of them. She wants to meet you, but I told her she had to wait until we get back."

"That is for the best, I think," Yukie looked at the closed case as if there might be a baby rattlesnake in it.

"I thought so too. Aren't you going to open it?" Ah, there was an opening in the traffic. He moved over, and then had to stop the car again.

She did. The chain had simple round links alternating with smaller ornate links, and the high gold content meant it was a darker, richer shade than most modern jewelry. The earrings matched, and the only stones in the piece were tiny cabochon rubies on the clasp. At sixteen inches long, it should dip just below her collarbones.

He watched her face, which looked almost stricken. Was Rose wrong about giving her something, or had he made a mistake about her taste? "It can be exchanged—."

"No! It's very beautiful. I have never owed anything so fine." The smile she gave him was the aching, tender smile she saved for certain moments. "You…you surprised me, that is all. And now you have embarrassed me, for I have nothing for you."

"You're taking me to Japan for eight weeks. That's more than enough. Put it on, and I'll snap a picture for Rose, something else she insisted on. She's curious as hell about what you look like, and this is her way of being sneaky about it."

Yukie complied, opening her coat and freeing her hair from her hat. The rich dark gold emphasized the whiteness of her skin. "Perfect." He took out his phone and took the shot.

"Please thank her for me," Yukie said, "and tell her that if she wants to expand beyond Kurosawa, then to try Kwaidan, the one from the sixties. It's a collection of ghost stories, including the one from which I got the name I used for Jian Wu."

"I'll do that…If you were going to take up the costumed life, I'd say you ought to change it. Calling yourself 'Yuki-Onna' when your name is actually 'Yukie' misses the point."

"I will remember that—'Slayed'," she teased. "While you have your phone out, let me share the trip itinerary with you."

Unbeknownst to him, when he sent Rose the message and the picture later, he also sent the itinerary, for his impatient daughter had embedded a virus in one of her messages which copied all data from his phone to hers. Luckily it was only his social phone, and not the work one.

* * *

A/N: Well! A fast update for my loyal readers, and thank you. The house Slade has on Lake Tahoe is a real house. I am very interested in architecture ( I wish my art and math were up to a professional architect's standards, but they never will be.) and when I was looking around for an area where Yukie might want to live and found it, I 'borrowed' the description. There's a link in my profile if you want to see the real thing.

The Stevenson poem Slade quoted on Wintergreen's grave is actually a love poem titled, 'My Wife'. The sentiment holds true, however, and I admit I copied the idea from the grave of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

To my reviewers Fandelivres, Tev, and Swordstitcher, an extra special thanks.


	14. Rose: A Likely Story

**December 23rd:**

Rose stared at the picture on her phone's tiny screen, and then sent it to her computer for a better look. So this was Yukie… Large eyes set in a thinnish face with a high forehead and a soft-looking mouth, that was her first impression. The second thought she had was that Yukime Kuwano looked—startled. Yes, definitely startled.

Even though her father had said she wasn't what most people considered beautiful and Tim had said pretty much the same, she had expected somebody who looked, well, gorgeous but hard-edged, like Lady Shiva or maybe Lucy Liu. Yukie looked feeling, sensitive. A sensitive, feeling person with no severe moral objections to murder for hire. _How does this make sense?_

She read the message, and then she looked at the itinerary. So they landed in Tokyo on the eleventh, and they were staying at the Ryokan Kanesei Hana for three weeks. Each day had a note or two about what they would be doing or where they would be going. 'Morning: Edo-Tokyo Museum. Afternoon, Sightseeing in Asakusa.' was straightforward enough, but there were also entries like 'Investigate sightings of Kuchisake-onna in/around Taito prefecture.' What did _that _mean? After that, they were going to be traveling around the country until the last week, which they would spend at the Hakkoda Resort Hotel, skiing. The notes for the area were 'Superior powder, never crowded, challenging runs. The Inn is known for the excellence of its cuisine.'

Okay, so now she knew everywhere they would be and when. _So what? What good does that do me?_

She found _Kwaidan _on line, and called it up. It was…surreal. Four ghost stories, sort of. The second one was more like a fairy tale and the last one was 'blink and you missed it' short.

The first story, 'Black Hair', was about a lordless samurai who divorced and abandoned his loyal, hardworking wife to marry a woman from a rich and influential family who could advance his career, but she turned out to be vain and self-indulgent. All he could think of was his lost love and how what he had gained was not worth what he had given up. Finally he finished his military service, divorced the nasty wife, and went back to find his first wife, who was still living in the ruins of their old house, dirt poor but unchanged.

Her love for him had never dwindled, either, for she took him back immediately. After spending the night with her, he woke in the morning to find he had been embracing a skeleton—his wife had died years before right there in their house. Ghosts in Japan must be something like vampires because he aged years overnight and died strangling in yards and yards of her black tresses.

Next there was the tale of 'Yuki-Onna', which she watched through once and decided to go back and watch again after she saw the rest. The third story was 'Hoichi the Earless'. Hoichi was a blind musician who thought he was giving a command performance to a great lord and his noble court in an elegant mansion when he was actually sitting in a cemetery playing for a lot of ghosts. The problem was that associating too much with the dead was killing him, so his friend, a Buddhist priest, wrote all over his body with holy texts to make him invisible to the ghosts.

That was interesting because it was like warding off a vampire with a cross—Rose had never thought that other religions might have their own equivalent. Unfortunately, the priest was called away in the middle of all the writing, and his assistant forgot to ink Hoichi's ears. When a ghost came to fetch him that night, all he could see was the musician's ears, so he ripped off the ears and brought those as proof he tried. At least Hoichi lived.

The fourth tale, 'In A Cup Of Tea', puzzled the hell out of her. Somebody looked in a cup of tea and saw faces, then he disappeared. That was it?

She went back to 'Yuki-Onna'.

There were two woodcutters, a young one and an old one. One winter night, the two of them were stranded on the wrong side of the river, so they took shelter in an unheated hut. The older fell asleep, but the younger could not stay asleep, and waking when he heard a sound, he saw the door to the hut open. In the eerie snow light, he saw a woman enter the hut. She was dressed all in white, and her skin was also very white. She was quite beautiful, but her lips were blue. She glided soundlessly over to the old man, and breathed on him, killing him. Then she turned to the younger, and seeing that he was awake, she spoke to him. Because he was young and handsome, she said, she would spare him, but warned him that if he ever told anyone about her, she would reappear and kill him instantly. He woke in the morning to find that if it was a dream, it was a prophetic one. The old man was dead, frozen solid.

A few months later, after he recovered from nearly freezing to death himself, he met a pretty girl walking along the road. Her name was O-Yuki, and she was going to the big city to find work as a servant. Seeing that she was tired, he invited her to the house where he lived with his mother to rest for a while. His mother liked her and warned her about the dangers the big city held for young women, particularly from bad men. Much better to stay in the country, where everyone knew each other and looked out for each other. Somehow O-Yuki never made it to the city…

Ten years later, O-Yuki and the woodcutter had three healthy children together, and were still happily married. His mother had died of old age, praising her daughter-in-law with her last breath. The village women commented on how young and fresh she still was, since peasant women were usually old and worn out before they were thirty, between hard work and childbearing. Then one night, seeing his wife sewing by the fire, the woodcutter remembered the woman he saw in the snow light. He told his wife about her, saying she was the only other woman he had ever seen who was as beautiful as she was.

O-Yuki sprang up. 'It was I! It was Yuki! I told you never to tell anyone, and I would kill you now, were it not for the sake of those children asleep in the next room. I am leaving, and you will never see me again, but if they ever have cause to complain about how you care for them, I will return and kill you!' Then she turned into a gust of icy wind and disappeared up the chimney.

The story reminded her of Irish tales about selkies, seal-people who shapeshifted by putting on and taking off seal skins. A man snuck up on a selkie maiden while she was in her human form, stole her sealskin, hid it, and then he could do as he liked with her because she couldn't return to the sea. After being married for several years, one of their children found the skin. The selkie seized it, leapt back into the sea, and disappeared forever, leaving her husband and children behind.

All in all, Rose liked the Japanese version better. _O-Yuki freely chose to love her woodcutter. She chose to marry him and have children with him._ _It didn't start out with theft and what amounts to rape, and she didn't abandon her children without looking back. She __**cared**__ about what happened to them._

Whatever O-Yuki was, she wasn't a ghost. Ghosts couldn't live for ten years among the living without hurting them, the stories 'Black Hair' and 'Hoichi the Earless' made that clear. _Maybe she was a supernatural being, or…a metahuman, like me, like Dad. Heck, like __**half **__the people I know. She had cold-based powers, but she could control them, and her husband never knew. And…maybe leaving because he told was only an excuse. People were already beginning to talk about how she didn't age. If she stayed another ten years, they'd do more than just talk. They'd know for __**sure**__ she was different_. _ Then what would they have done?_

Then again, it was only a very old story in an old movie_._

She understood about a third of the dialog now_. I'm picking up Japanese left and right. Another week, a dozen more movies, and I bet I won't need subtitles anymore. I can't read kanji yet, though._ There were two different ways of writing Japanese: kana, which was phonetic and easy, and kanji, which was based on Chinese pictographs and fiendishly difficult.

_In a week, I'd be able to go along with them and I'd do just fine. Hell, two weeks, and I wouldn't even need them, I could go on my own._

_I __**could **__go on my own…_

Quite a few disastrous decisions in life can be explained by one simple phrase, 'It seemed like a good idea at the time…'

* * *

**January 10th.**

"No," said the innkeeper. The hotel wasn't so much a hotel as it was an inn—smaller and homey—and in this case, it was an inn from at least a hundred years ago, maybe more, which was actually pretty cool, or it would be if they ever let her check in.

"But I have a reservation," Rose pleaded in perfect Japanese. "Look, I'll even pay in advance!" She took out her wallet to show him all the yen bills it was stuffed with. Learning the money wasn't going to be as hard as she feared, nor were the prices that bad, because one yen seemed to be worth more or less one American penny, not a dollar like the on-line currency converter said.

"I don't care," he said, not acting the least impressed by her command of his language. "We don't have a floor for single women guests, and even if we did, there would be no room for _you_." He looked her up and down. "Try down two blocks. There's a rabu hoteru there. _They_ have lower standards. They have no standards at all as long as you can pay."

What was a rabu hoteru? Rose had no idea, never having encountered the phrase before, and thus did not know he was directing her to one of the infamous love hotels which rented out theme rooms either by the hour or by the night. All she knew was that it had been more than thirty-six hours since she slept in a bed, showered, or eaten something other than the Salmonella Special, and not even enough of that. Twenty three of those hours had been spent on planes, and she was exhausted, filthy, smelly, starving, definitely cranky, and her nose was running because of all of the air pressure changes. At least she had gotten there on time, exactly twenty four hours before her father and Yukie were set to arrive.

She fished around in her purse for a pack of tissues, found them, and blew her nose loudly. For some reason that made the innkeeper even madder. "Leave! Whatever a girl your age is doing traveling alone, it can't be good and I won't have it here!"

"But my daughter is not traveling alone," someone behind her said. "She is traveling with us. I apologize for my crude and callow offspring. She may have learned how to speak the language, but she clearly absorbed nothing of Japan's culture or customs."

"Oh,**_ shit!_**," Rose said in English. She could not have turned to face her father to save her life at that moment. The innkeeper looked past her, and then up, and his eyes bulged when he beheld exactly how tall and massive the very, very imposing foreigner was.

"Crudely put, but my sentiments exactly," her father replied in the same language, "and we will discuss it further once we are in our rooms. Apologize and bow," he finished in Japanese, following it up with a light cuff to the back of her head.

She did, ducking her head down low. "I'm very sorry."

"Ah—we'll say no more of it," the innkeeper replied, still goggling at her father, who was probably the biggest man he'd ever seen outside of a sumo match. "But…" he ran his finger down the column of his registration book, "under the name of Wilson, there is a reservation for only one."

"There may be some confusion about that, which is entirely our fault," a woman said, stepping up beside Rose and flashing her a warm smile. Large eyes in a narrow, oval face, high forehead, and if there was any further confirmation needed, a familiar gold chain around her neck. It was Yukie, her dad's girlfriend and possibly her future stepmother. "The original reservation is for two under the name of Kuwano. I believe we have the Asago Suite, the one which faces the garden. Please, if it is at all possible, can she either have an adjoining room, or can we be moved to a suite with a second bedroom?" She bowed to the innkeeper.

"If someone must be moved, please charge their room to our bill, to make up for the inconvenience," her father added. "Clearly my daughter must not go unsupervised."

"The Asago Suite has futons for four," the innkeeper said, "and it is a two room suite, so if you move the dining table and slide the doors shut, there will be privacy."

"That is wonderful. Thank you very much," Yukie replied. "Of course we will pay for both the suite and her room."

"This way, please." The three of them followed the innkeeper in silence. I_ wish I could teleport out of here. Or go invisible. It would be so nice if I could just cloud their minds and make them forget this. Dropping dead would be good, too. I'd even settle for just fainting…_Maybe there'll be a meteor strike, or one of those huge insect or lizard things will attack the city…Nah, every site said the giant creatures only come out in late summer_. No such luck. _All too soon, they reached a door which the innkeeper slid open for them, handing over keys and pointing out a few of the room's features, like the small garden with evergreens and snow outside the window.

"Thank you. Please send in a meal for three as soon as possible," her father ordered. For the first time since he'd spoken up at the front desk, Rose looked at him. _Oh, this isn't good_. He had that pale, sweaty look that he only got when he'd been hurt bad—_very_ bad—and he wasn't healed up enough yet. _So he's both in pain and furious. I'm__** really**__ in trouble now_.

"Now," he said in English and in a perfectly calm, conversational tone of voice, while sinking down to the floor and wincing as he did so, "we will have this out without shouting because you have created a bad enough impression already. Sit down, Rose. I'm not going to have you looming over us." Yukie took an earthenware bottle and two small wooden boxes from a shelf, knelt down beside him, poured something out of the bottle into a box, and handed it to him. He tossed it back and held it out for more. Some of the color was returning to his face.

Rose sat down cross legged. There were no chairs in the room. There was practically no furniture in the room, actually.

"Yukie, this is my daughter Rose. Unless Tokyo is in imminent danger and the rest of the Titans are close by, she had better have an explanation so epic it's Homeric in proportion. Rose, this is Yukime Kuwano, who invited me to Japan for the pleasure of _my_ company, not the pleasure of yours."

"Hello, Rose," Yukie said, looking grave enough for an entire cemetery. "I did not think we would meet so soon, and I never thought we would meet in Japan without advance notice." _Great. She's going to think I'm this stupid kid, and she'll never like me_. To be fair, this was about the most foolish thing she had ever done.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes, I'm sure you are, now that you've been caught." Slade Wilson said. He picked up the earthenware bottle and poured Yukie a box of whatever was in it. "Now you can apologize to Yukie for intruding on her first vacation in twelve years, for invasion of our privacy, and for making us have to change our plans in order to send you home. In twelve hours you're going to be back on a plane heading for the US. If I hadn't had to jump off a bridge in Kiev and landed badly, we'd be on our way to the airport now."

There was no way she could call this icy creature 'Yukie' without being invited to. "Ms. Kuwano. I'm really sorry," Rose said. "I just-I really am sorry. It's not Dad's fault. I thought you weren't even arriving until the eleventh!"

"And if we had, would that have made everything all right?" he asked sardonically.

"No, it wouldn't," she admitted.

Yukie put in, "The confusion over the date is easily explained. In the United States, where I planned this trip, it is indeed the eleventh. But when you crossed the International Date Line in mid-Pacific Ocean, it became the tenth again."

"Oh," Rose said.

"'Oh' is not an explanation. 'O' is a letter in the alphabet," her father remarked. "Among other things, I would like to know how you learned enough about where we were going to try and get here before we did."

"I put a trojan on your phone when I texted you before Christmas," she muttered. "When you sent me that picture of Ms. Kuwano wearing the necklace, you sent me the itinerary too."

"That explains how. Now how about you explain why." Her father could deliver more powerful glares with only one eye than anybody else could with two.

"I-Look, can I use the bathroom first? It was a long taxi ride from the airport." Rose was playing for time, but she really did have to go.

"It's through there," Yukie gestured. "You will want to take off your house slippers and exchange them for toilet slippers."

"Okay." The innkeeper had made her take off her shoes and put on slippers when she came in—she'd known about that, but she never thought she'd actually have to do it—but toilet slippers?

It got worse. When she went in the little room, the toilet looked nothing like any American toilet. It looked like a urinal set horizontally in the floor. _I am __**so**__ not ready for this._ "Um…" she raised her voice.

"I advise taking off your jeans and underwear completely until you are accustomed to using such facilities. Then face the wall and squat over the end nearest to it." Yukie called.

"Ooookay…" She did so, hearing her father and Yukie's voices, but not catching what they were saying. _They're probably fighting already. This is awful. I couldn't have screwed up worse_. At least it killed time, especially since she had to get undressed and dress again.

"No more stalling," he warned her.

"I don't know why," she admitted. "I didn't want to wait until March and...well, I was afraid this was all bullshit. I thought if I could see you together when you didn't know you were being watched, I'd know if this was for real."

"_That_ was your plan?" her father demanded. "You skipped school, flew thousands of miles to a foreign country, spent I don't know how much on plane tickets, all to spy on us, and you were busted within ten minutes. All I can say is, don't _ever_ plan any more independent missions in the field, because this one is a disaster. How did you afford this?"

"It was that trust fund money," she said. _My face can't possibly get any redder or hotter._

"You mean the fund I set up for you? The same money you said you would never touch because it was bloodstained? _That_ money?"

"Yes."

"So it's not too dirty to touch when there's something you really want. And what about your school? How did you explain your absence?" Her father crossed his arms and waited for a response.

"That was the easy part. Being with the Titans, we're always having to leave for weeks when something happens."

He sighed heavily. "There are literally dozens of hero teams ready to spring into action to save the world. _You_ are the only one who can get your education for you. I am deeply disappointed in you, Rose. Of all the idiotic things you could have done..." The way he looked at her made her wish he would just hit her instead, that was how much it hurt.

There was a sound outside the door, and it slid open. Two women in kimonos, obviously mother and daughter, were there with trays of food. "No more about this tonight," Yukie decreed. "Let's just enjoy our dinner, have a long soak, and get some sleep. We'll have more spirit to argue about this in the morning."

* * *

A/N: So why the lengthy description of the movie Kwaidan? All I can say is, you never know what may turn out to be important later. The four stories were all taken from the works of Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek expatriate writer who settled in Japan. The earthenware bottle contains sake, BTW, and the small wooden boxes are sake cups called masu made out of hinoki wood.

To my reviewers, Tev, Dan, and fandelivres, many thanks!


	15. Slade, Rose: Cooperation

December 8-11th:

Under the supports of the Moskovski Bridge, Deathstroke lay for a moment, stunned by the impact. Then the pain came rolling in. _Broken ribs, punctured lung, spinal injuries. Broken pelvis? No. Bad enough. Not so bad that a hotshot won't take care of it…_

He reached for the ampules in his waist pouch. 'Hotshot' was slang for a hellish compound of adrenaline, cocaine, methamphetamine, morphine and digitalis used only in extremis to get someone up and moving even if they had a broken leg, as it had an addiction rate of ninety percent after one dose. He carried five of them at all times, and this was only the third time he had ever had to use one on himself.

Ten ccs directly into the neck later, he was sprinting for his getaway vehicle. The driver was dead—he pulled the body out, sat down in the pool of blood, and drove. Six hours after that, he was twelve million richer and disembarking from a plane in Paris. The hotshot had worn off by then, but his regenerative abilities were still repairing the damage. No part of his body wanted to move. He made it move anyway.

Checking his messages, he found one from Rose's watcher: _Flower boarded plane en route Tokyo_.

Slade had found the virus the day after Rose installed it. Realizing what had happened, he also knew how his daughter's mind was likely to work, and therefore, the news from her watcher was not unexpected.

On his way to the baggage claim, he had to stop for a moment as black spots swam in his vision. Hastily taking a square of fine cotton from his pocket, he coughed a dark and ominous clot from the depths of his lung, and disposed of the handkerchief in the nearest trash can. His bags weren't yet going around on the luggage carousel, so he sank down on a bench and waited. Pain? What was pain? Weakness leaving the body, that was all…

"Pardonnez moi, Monsieur. Ou est la catastrophe?" a woman's voice asked. _Excuse me, sir. Which way is the catastrophe?_

"Ici meme," he rasped, turning. _Right here._ A private joke of theirs.

Yukie's face went from bright and welcoming to stricken, worried. "This time, you are not joking. You're hurt."

"Yes. Don't worry, if I were going to die I would have done it already. I don't need to go to the hospital or see a doctor. By this time tomorrow you'll never know anything was wrong." She had never seen him when he was badly injured before, though once or twice he'd postponed a rendezvous because of it. Well, she would have to get used to it, if—.

"As long as you stay conscious, I will respect that. If you pass out or stop making sense, then I will use my best judgment. Wait here, I will arrange matters." _Arranging matters_ meant organizing a wheelchair to get him to a taxi and getting a porter to wrangle their bags. He stayed quiet and let her. It was that or another hotshot, and he preferred the pain.

The next morning, he was much improved. The night before, his torso was the color of a basket of blueberries. At daybreak, it was an impressionist landscape. However, Yukie suggested they stay in Paris another day that he might recover further. He would have agreed, except that Rose was on her way to Tokyo. Who knew what might happen to her alone there?

He endured the flight, customs, and the taxi, until finally they arrived at their ryokan, where his daughter was arguing with the innkeeper. She looked as though she had been sleeping on the street—and smelled like it, too. More than that, being a young girl, she was effectively trash-talking to the man by using the assertive form of speech, a nuance that someone who had truly studied Japanese would have known. Finally she blew her nose right in front of him, confirming all around that she had crawled out of a gutter.

It was time to intervene. The innkeeper gave them no more trouble after that…

When Rose retreated to the bathroom, he leaned over to say to Yukie, "If she thinks the toilets are bad, wait until she sees the baths."

"Fortunately, I reserved a private bathing room, so she will not have to share a tub with strangers." She suddenly smiled. "I wonder how she would react if she learned that everyone in a family used to use a bath together, all ages and both sexes. However…it seems to me that you were not very surprised to see her. In fact, you were not surprised at all."

"I have someone keeping an eye on her in the States and her accounts are flagged when large or frequent withdrawals are made, so yes, I knew."

"_Now_ I know why you insisted we keep to the schedule as planned," Yukie said, pensively. "Does she want for attention that much?"

"Rose was the youngest. She got the least of it from both of us." Sounds from inside the bathroom suggested she was done. He set his face in stern lines again.

The next morning: He woke with the mingled scents of dry meadow grass and apples in his nose. The apple smell was easily explained, because that was the dominant note in Yukie's favorite perfume. The meadow grass was a mystery. Sitting up, he worked his shoulders. The pain was gone, and if anything, his back felt quite good. Breathing deeply, he detected no rattle or sloshing in his lungs, no impulse to cough, and everything seemed to be functioning as usual both above and, hmm, below the waist…

Sliding back down, he slid an arm around Yukie's waist, pressing himself against her flank. Her breath hitched, and she opened her eyes. "_Good_ morning," he said with emphasis, and watched her thought processes as she realized first that he had recovered and then what he had on his mind.

The smile that meant 'I am about to _wreck_ you' spread over her face, and she put a shushing finger to her lips, then pointed to the sliding screen that separated their room from Rose's. After which she did her best to make it very difficult for him to stay silent, but he managed. He then reciprocated in kind, although he had to put a hand over her mouth at the end. She bit him, but apologized immediately after she got her breath back.

"Don't," he replied with a chuckle. "You didn't even break the skin. You know, there's something to be said for sleeping on futons. No springs to creak."

"And no slats to break," she gave him a knowing glance. Once when she booked them into a bed and breakfast, their weight combined with their vigorous exercise had destroyed their hosts' prized antique.

"As I recall, _you_ had something to do with that. Why does it smell like mown hay down here?"

"It's the tatami mats," she slapped the flooring. "To me, that smell will always mean my grandmother's apartment and feeling utterly safe."

"It reminds me of playing in the tall grass in the vacant lot down the street."

"Slade—about Rose…"

"We'll leave for the airport right after breakfast." He looked about for a robe.

"That is one answer, but there might be another."

"What are you suggesting?" There was a crisp cotton robe with a pattern of carp on it. Good enough.

"I remember what it was to be her age. It was terrible, having to be that young all day long. Rose went to such extremes to get here. Clearly she is not stupid. On some level she must have known she would be caught. She wanted to be caught. Why? Because she wanted your attention. Why not give it to her? The next bid for your attention is apt to be even more extreme. I suggest that she stay for a few days, contingent on her behavior." Yukie pulled on her pajama top and turned over the covers, looking for more of her night clothes.

"You mean to reward her for running off and trying to spy on us?"

"No. She would have to earn it." Yukie found her tablet charger and current converter, plugged in her device. "In order to stay, she must dress appropriately, behave appropriately, participate in whatever plans are on for the day, try new foods, and maintain a positive and open minded attitude.

"I do not propose to alter a single hour of our plans to indulge her or entertain her, but there is free time here and there when she could mingle with other people her age and eat at McDonald's, if she so chooses. Also, there are some times she would have to stay behind, because I do not propose to take her into Nerima when we go in search of Kayako. It would be too dangerous. Every day of good behavior would earn her another day, up until we leave Tokyo, at any rate."

"And if she hates it, we can remind her it was all her idea and send her packing," Slade mused.

"As you say." Yukie nodded, folding up her bedding and futon.

"I like the idea…but this is your hard-earned vacation. You don't want to give it up by taking on the burden of my wilful child, because you'd wind up doing just that. You know better than I how she should dress and behave. And I disagree that she came all this way to get my attention. She really came all this way because of you."

"I was surprised that you told her about me," Yukie paused in what she was doing. "But she would not be here if you had not told her about me, so your argument is circular. As for giving up my vacation—if Rose is willing to make the effort to enjoy time spent with us in Tokyo, then she will be no burden. If she is not, then she will go home and again—no burden. If I can help mend your relationship with her, I will count it as time well spent."

He smiled. He had expected something of the kind from Yukie. It was simply part of her nature.

"However," she went on to say, "you must be the one to explain the terms to her. I hold no authority with her."

"Done," he agreed. "Now I'm off to the bathing room. After breakfast, I'll be going out to meet my local contact."

"If Rose is willing to cooperate, she and I will go shopping. Among other things, she will need sound-cancelling headphones, or something of the sort. So I don't have to bite you next time."

* * *

Exhausted as much by emotion as by the trip, Rose slept on until her father knocked on the door separating the two rooms.

"Uh—wha—?" she got out, wondering why she was sleeping on the floor. _Oh. Right. Tokyo. And I made a fool of myself._

"Make yourself decent if you're not already," he called. "We need to talk."

She hadn't brought pajamas, but the hotel provided them as well as robes. Putting one of the latter on over the rest, she slid the door open. They'd given her the inner room, maybe so she couldn't sneak out without waking them.

Deathstroke was already fully dressed and checking the slide on his weapon. "How did you get _that_ past Customs?" she blurted out.

He gave her that sardonic look. "If I couldn't, it would be time for me to hang it up. Work it out for yourself. Now, Yukie is in the bath, and I want to get this sorted out before she's done."

"Is she—did you have a fight already?"

"A fight? No. Why would we? I didn't invite you; you invited yourself. In fact, it is her belief that this stunt was a cry for attention on your part, and that if you don't get it, your next bid will be even worse. To that end, she proposes that you join us for a few days, possibly longer—."

"She does? Then I didn't screw up that badly?" The cord that felt like it bound Rose's heart loosened.

"No, you _did _screw up that badly, but Yukie is willing to give you a chance. It's up to you to not screw that up too. This offer is contingent upon your willingness to cooperate. That means you have to behave. You have to dress like a well-brought up young woman and not a runaway who's been living on the street. You are not to turn up your nose at anything that's not pizza or a burger and fries, nor sulk or roll your eyes, nor walk around staring at your phone all the time without looking at your surroundings.

"In short, you are not to behave like an American teenager. If you find these conditions intolerable, you need only say so, or act as if you do, and you'll be back on a plane within hours. Honestly, I'd prefer you made up your mind to go home now and save us all some time," he remarked callously.

"I _know_ what reverse psychology is, Dad," she retorted, then hesitated. "Do you really want me to stay?"

"I think that since you're here, I'm curious to see how Yukie copes with you, and for that matter, how well you learn, or don't learn, to adapt to another culture. If you stay, Yukie will be the one correcting you. She's in the bathing room, as I said. Go talk to her. Or don't."

Rose opted to go, taking her toiletries with her. He was being deliberately insulting, as if the moods and passions of a teenager were something someone could turn on and off at will, as if they were not real and important. Yukie was in the soaking tub, a wooden box with very high sides, her eyes closed. She looked as though she were asleep. Rose went over to the shower area, and tried to remember everything Yukie had told her the night before.

'_Never get in the soaking tub while you're still dirty or soapy. Soap up and rinse off well before you get in. Don't go around shamelessly in the nude; hold a towel in front of you, length-wise, shoulder to knees, while you're crossing the room or walking around in it. Shared baths are always same-gender these days, indoors or outdoors unless you're at a very small ryokan or hot spring.' _

After she was sure she was rinsed clean, she went over to the tub and stepped into it gingerly.

"Uh—Yukie?"

"Yes?" her father's girlfriend asked.

"Thank you for giving me a chance."

"Was that a 'thank you, yes' or a 'no, thank you'?" Yukie still hadn't opened her eyes.

"It was a yes," Rose hastily replied.

"Good," Yukie smiled. "It would be very selfish of me not to, when I must have seen your father more often over the last year than you have. However, I must tell you this: I will talk about nearly anything with you that you care to discuss—except your father and my relationship with him. I ask you to respect that."

"Okay!" she agreed. "So—uh—Oh, yeah. I wasn't turning up my nose at dinner last night. I just didn't have any appetite. I really like Japanese food. I've had sushi a lot—and tempura, and uh, teriyaki, and ramen, and—well, I know there's a lot of things I don't know. But I usually dress better, too. I'd been wearing what I stood up in for two days, awake and asleep. I didn't realize smoothie had dripped all over the front until it was already stained. So I would be very grateful for your help." The last part of it was a little forced, but she figured it was a smart thing to say even if it was a bit of a lie.

"That is a start," Yukie opened her eyes and gave Rose a look which was, all in all, kind and sympathetic. "I understand that you, like your father, pick up languages almost immediately, which gift I envy you. The advantage to that is obvious; the disadvantage is less so. The problem is, you speak Japanese so well that people will assume you are being rude on purpose instead of through ignorance. Do you understand?"

"I guess…but what did I do that was so wrong?"

"To begin with, the way you spoke to the innkeeper. We walked in part way through. How did you say hello?"

"I walked in and said, 'Hello, I have a reservation. The name is Wilson Rose.'" She knew that in Japan the family name came first, and then the given name—she wasn't _that_ ignorant.

"There was your first mistake. Do you understand the difference between saying 'Quiet, please!' and 'Will you shut up!'?"

"Of course!" A little annoyance leaked into that, and Rose reined it in. "'Quiet, please!' is polite and 'Shut up! Is assertive."

"Exactly. If you had come in, stood up straight, bowed, smiled, and said, 'Excuse me, my name is Wilson Rose. Thank you for taking good care of me. Please, can you check your book for my reservation?', he would never have told you to go to a love hotel. If you were well dressed, he would have assumed you were older than you look and shown you to your room without questions. Someone your age should always use the polite forms when speaking to an elder. Not doing so is almost like saying 'fuck' every other word, especially since you are a young woman. The double standard is alive and well in Japan—which is only one reason why I choose to live in America."

"Wait—he told me to go to a love hotel?" The meaning of 'rabu hoteru' was suddenly clear. She could guess what sort of place _that _was.

"He did. That brings me to the other gaffe on your part. Having lived in America so long, I understood the statement your clothes were making. 'I am young, hot, ironic, urban, and reject consumerism.' However, here the same outfit says, 'I am poor, sloppy and somewhat sluttish as well.' No one should be able to see any part of your breasts through your bra, and you _must_ wear one, and ideally no one should see any part of your bra through your blouse."

"…Oh." Rose said, and the heat in her face had nothing to do with the heat of the water.

"That is why you and I are going to go shopping this morning. Think of it as playing the part of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady." Yukie smiled. "That casts _me_ in the unsympathetic role of Professor Higgins, but I am prepared for that."

* * *

A/N: Tired. Going to bed now. Thank you to my reviewers Fandelivres and Tev!


	16. Gar, Yukie: Lost in Transition

With breakfast came the welcome news that the room next to the Asago suite was now available for Rose's use, thereby removing the need for sound-dampening headphones and biting, not to mention embarrassment or mortification on anyone's part. However, Slade did add the caveat that Rose had better not do anything foolish with her extra freedom and privacy, such as sneak out or sneak in—that was, to sneak anyone in.

What none of them knew was that she already had, albeit unintentionally. Garfield Logan, AKA Beast Boy, had overheard her talking to her father on the phone, and since he had never entirely trusted their sworn enemy's kin, he was immediately on the alert. Noting her suspicious behavior and furtive manner in the weeks leading up to her flight to Japan, he decided to transform himself into a bedbug and hid in her knapsack. Later he took the form of a mouse, the better to snack on the candy and pretzels she'd packed. (Rose did not appreciate the droppings he inevitably left, thanks to the length of the flight and then having to stay hidden in the bag.)

He had certainly never expected to end up in Tokyo, phoneless and without a passport or wallet. Worse still, instead of some sinister plot, all Deathstroke seemed to be up to was going on vacation with a lady friend, and worst of all, _he_ hadn't been asleep when Slade and said lady woke up and got busy. He hadn't heard much, but he'd heard enough to know what was going on.

Yes, he knew that people their ages could still have sex sometimes, but ugh, what were they doing that took so _long_? For despite everything that he boasted about, Gar was a virgin and at the stage where his libido was on a hair-trigger. He could not imagine that it would ever take him longer to get ready or, for that matter, to finish up. Nor did he have the least clue how female sexuality worked.

And yes, he did spy on Rose when she was naked, because he was a terrible horndog.

However, once Rose had stowed the backpack in her room and gone back to the Asago suite to share the meal, the green-skinned youth crept out of the bag, quickly opened the window, shifted to the form of a seagull, and dove up into the sky. Soon he discovered that Tokyo was home to flocks of cold-hardy parakeets, descendants of pets that had escaped and gone feral. While they had bright pink beaks, their feathers were green. Perfect camouflage!

The problem was, he should have taken the form of a homing pigeon or some other animal with an excellent sense of direction when he left the inn, or paid more attention to the neighborhood, because he very shortly became lost. Unlike Rose, Gar did not speak Japanese…

* * *

At the mirror, Yukie combed her drying hair and looked into her own eyes without really seeing herself.

'_Marry me.'_

At the time, she thought Slade was joking. If she understood the subtle hints and signs, now it seemed as if he had only said it in a joking manner. She would much rather he were joking.

'_It's clear to me I'm never going to do better than you, so there's nothing else to be done.'_

Then he pulled out the jewelry box and dropped it in her lap.

'_If you don't like it, blame my daughter. She insisted._'

It was a remarkably heavy thing, for something so small. The symbolic weight was even heavier.

'_She wants to meet you.'_

The gift was no cheap trinket. The weight of the chain, the perfect little rubies, and the purity of the gold meant it had to have cost at least several thousand dollars, perhaps significantly more. And he had told his daughter about her. One did not tell a child about a casual, meaningless sex partner. Or even a casual, friendly sex partner.

Whatever he had said had caused Rose to follow them to Tokyo.

It was only supposed to be about sex. She thought all she was to Slade was…a convenience. A sure thing. Reliable. A few hours when he could relax, to the extent that he ever relaxed, when he could enjoy himself, catch a night's sleep, and then…go back to his life, as she went back to hers.

That then begged the question: what was he to her?

_Just once_, she'd told herself that night. _Just this one night_. The duel had lit a fire in her blood, and she hadn't been with anyone for ten years. That fascinating face of his, that body…

Discovering that he put the same intensity and thoroughness into _everything_ he did, once you got his full attention.

_Just once_ became _just once more_ when he called her a few weeks later. And then again.

Two years slipped by. Victor discovered the cure. Nora's revival would mean the end of their understanding. It was time to plan her future. Time to decide whether to look for a house somewhere with cool summers and good school districts, or whether to ascend Hakkoda. Either way, it was time to break it off with Slade.

She could have just stopped answering his messages, but after two years, that seemed too impersonal. She knew him now. Here and there, he had shared with her some details of his life. Every relationship he had ever had with anyone, be it with wife and children, brother and father, friend and ally, had ended in betrayal and carnage. Sometimes on his part, sometimes on the other person's, and sometimes by third parties.

Simply letting theirs lapse was not the way to change a lifelong pattern. So Yukie formed a plan: Take him to Japan for two months. Show him a world he was not familiar with—at once her country, which was, by and large, safe, quiet, orderly and law-abiding, and the world beyond this one, because death was not only not the end, for some people it was only the beginning. Create for him some happy memories.

Then, at the end of it, tell him this, 'Since first this began between us, I have known this day was coming. All the things I want now, you have already had. A home, a family, a place that belongs to me alone and cannot be taken away. We are out of sync in our lives. Even if you want the same things, even if you were willing to begin again with me, I do not want that. I don't want what happened to your first family to happen to mine. You have meant more to me,_ been_ more to me, than anyone, but here is where it must end.'

However, somewhere along the way, a dissenting inner voice had begun to argue with that resolve. Certain of her ancestresses had been samurai wives who managed estates and defended castles while their husbands were performing their military duties elsewhere. Before the shoguns had pulled the teeth of the warring factions and brought about peace, generations of women in samurai families were trained to handle weapons and command their forces, fiercely, courageously, and without hesitation. They brought swords, pikes and mercy blades with them when they wedded, not as gifts for their new husbands, but for their own use. Their blood in her said: _Attack __**my**__ family, and __**die**__. A warrior's wife should be better prepared. Why shoot your husband for exposing your child to danger when you can shoot the one who endangered him? Wed him. **Make** it work._

No. That way was folly and madness. The late Adeline Kane Wilson was not weak or helpless, and she had failed.

Besides, with the added complication of Ra's Al Ghul, it was better to take the other path.

Hakkoda waited for her. The answers she sought lay there among that mountain range. If it meant leaving this current existence to do so, she was not afraid of death—at least her mind was not. Her body had its own opinion, but since it was the part of her which would actually die, it had a right to be afraid. Perhaps she would not die in the process, but a journey which called upon one to give up every earthly thing was not a journey undertaken with any hope of returning to the life you had before. Burn every bridge as it was crossed. Give up everything. Give up everyone.

No matter how it hurt.

_If giving up every earthly thing was easy, we would all be bodhisattvas dwelling in the Pure Land_.

What was he to her? The person she chose to spend the last days of her life with.

_Enough combing before I comb myself bald_, she told herself, and gathered her mane into a pony tail low on her neck. Rose had heard somewhere that Harajuku was the center of youth fashion in Japan and wanted to go there. Yukie was not so sure the girl understood what was considered high fashion among the young in Japan. Certainly she had not yet grasped the nuance that one did not need to dress revealingly in order to be outrageous, but Harajuku was as good a place as any to start their day.

Besides, she was quite looking forward to seeing Rose's reaction—and to telling Slade about it afterwards.

_I will do my best to mend their relationship before I go_, she resolved. A parting gift…

She had always wanted daughters.

* * *

A/N: Yes, it is very short, but it was not an auspicious week for writing. I promise the next will be longer. Yes, there really are flocks of feral parakeets living in certain areas of Tokyo. Incidentally, the info about samurai women is true, and the weapons they used were the wakizashi, a short sword, the naginata, a type of halberd or pike, and the tanto, a dagger which was used to defend one's honor one way or another at the bitter end.


	17. Rose: Harajuku Girl

Harajuku was very, very urban and built up. It was also brightly colored, and the streets were closed to traffic, at least around the shopping district and the bridge. Even more brightly colored, though, were the people. There was hardly a naturally colored head of hair to be seen, assuming everyone gathered there was a normal human, not a meta, and also Japanese.

Rose looked around at the crowd thronging the area and ventured a question. "Is it, like, Halloween here or something?" Everyone seemed to be in some sort of costume, and not the kind you wore to save the world, either. She could see punks of both sexes, girls in Alice-in-Wonderland style dresses either dark and moody or bright and cheerful, a lot of guys in vampire or Victorian dandy clothes, both genders in kimonos mixed incongruously with things like corsets and bowler hats, and some dressed as cartoon or movie characters.

There were even people dressed more or less ordinarily, but whose garb mixed, for example, a plaid coat with mismatched leggings, one rainbow striped and the other polka dotted, and then loaded down with every accessory possible and a few that weren't possible. Their costumes weren't the trashy kind from Halloween pop-up stores, either. Every stitch, every bauble was beautifully made.

"No, it's just Harajuku on a Sunday, and not even in full swing yet," Yukie replied.

"Okay—why?"

"Either at school or at work, these young people are expected to adhere to a strict dress code. There isn't much room for self-expression and there's no such thing as Casual Friday, so when they get to the weekend, they make up for it by dressing up whatever way they like."

"But—why the baby bonnets and the Punky Brewster overalls and cutesy stuff?" Rose asked. "Why do they want to look like they're about six years old?"

"It's a statement: 'I'm so young I'm still playing dress-up. I'm too young for adult things like sex and marriage and managing a household.'" Yukie led them around a group who had gone with a 'Scooby-Doo' theme, each member dressed like one of the toons.

"To answer your next question, Japan is still a very sexist society and a youth-obsessed one at that. Women are expected to retire from the work force by about age thirty, if not when they marry, then certainly when they have children. Some progress has been made, but not enough. If I were looking for a job here today and somehow got to the interview stage, I assure you they would look at my resume and then say something like, 'Very impressive, but do you know any women with all these qualifications who are at least fifteen years younger than you?'"

"You're kidding me."

"Unfortunately, no." Yukie returned.

"What?" Rose spluttered. "But—that's illegal! Employers aren't allowed to discriminate on things like sex and age!"

"In the US, it may be illegal, but not here. Even in the States, it can be extremely difficult to prove unless a prospective employer makes an indiscreet remark in front of witnesses or has practiced such discrimination often enough to show a pattern. Again, even then it can be difficult to prove to a court—for example, the class action suit against Wal-Mart which so memorably failed."

"That—," Rose cast about for the right words. "That sucks! It isn't fair—aren't we supposed to be beyond all that?"

Yukie stopped and turned to face her. "Yes. But these are minor problems, first-world problems. In South Korea, by law a medical professional cannot tell a couple the sex of their unborn child because even though abortions are illegal there, if it is female, they will more often than not abort it. Even well to do, well educated women would far rather have boys rather than raise daughters who will go through what they went through.

"In parts of Africa, they still perform genital mutilations upon young girls because no man will marry a woman who is capable of taking pleasure in sex. After all, she might seek it elsewhere if her husband can't provide it at home. And then there are countries where you would be shot for wanting to go to school, like Malala Yousafazi. Never let _anyone_ tell you that you don't need feminism. But this is too serious a conversation for a shopping expedition. Today is supposed to be fun."

They started down the street once more. Rose bit her lip. Set against what other girls her age faced every day, being part of the Titans suddenly seemed immature and short sighted, and the thought of taking up her father's line of work to redress some of these wrongs was an attractive one.

"Is your coat warm enough? I'm so used to low temperatures that I have trouble judging how cold others might find it." Yukie asked.

"I could use a warmer one," Rose admitted. "Dad gave me one of his credit cards and told me I wasn't to let you pay for anything."

"Did he?" Yukie asked, as if it weren't particularly interesting.

"Yeah. He believes—I mean, really deep down _believes_—that a man should take care of his family."

"I think many people would agree with him," Yukie replied.

"Maybe, but there wasn't any need for him to. Mom inherited her family's money, more than we'd ever need, and while Dad was in the military, it didn't matter to him, even though he was hardly paid anything in comparison."

"Perhaps because as part of the armed forces, he was taking care of you in a way other than merely the financial," Yukie commented.

"Oh. I never thought of it that way. Anyhow, it was only after he was discharged, medically discharged, with honors, that he—started up in business for himself. The same business he's in now." Rose wasn't sure why she was explaining all this, especially since Yukie had to know most of it already, but it seemed important.

"Then he must believe it very strongly indeed," Yukie glanced her way. "But you are forgetting that I don't want to discuss your father or my relationship with him. Here, this is the Ray Beams store. Good quality, not unreasonably priced, and a sense of style without going to the extremes of fashion."

They went in. It was not terribly different inside than any midrange store in America, and finding the women's clothing took no effort at all. "How about if you try out your manners on that saleswoman?" Yukie suggested, nodding toward a woman who was straightening a pile of sweaters.

After learning how badly she had done with the innkeeper the day before, Rose was a little apprehensive as she approached the chic woman, who eyed her with a dubious wrinkle between her brows.

"Excuse me," she began, standing straight and tall, "but this is my first visit to Japan from the United States, and the airline lost my suitcase." It was much simpler to lie under the circumstances. "I need something to wear until it turns up. Can you help me pick out an outfit or two? Thank you for taking good care of me—and please forgive my manners if I make a social error." She finished with a bow.

Rose glanced at Yukie, who was standing at a discreet but reassuring distance, and was rewarded with a nod and a smile. The saleswoman noticed the look. She was no fool, and Yukie was well dressed, even if Rose was wearing a shabby thrift-store duffle coat and torn jeans. Adding in the fact that Rose spoke impeccable Japanese, she made an assumption that was mostly correct.

"Of course. Clothing sizes here are very different than in America. Please, if you would, take off your coat so I can get an idea of what you need."

Rose had her hood up, as it was rather chilly out, and when she pushed it back to undo the throat toggle, the woman gasped.

"What beautiful blonde hair! More platinum than Marilyn Monroe—and blue eyes as well. Oh, my!" Recovering her composure, she looked Rose up and down, assessing what she saw. "Fortunately, you are not too big boned for our clothing. Most Americans are too large to shop in the regular department. This way, and I'll show you what girls your age are wearing."

The exclamation about Rose's hair had a dramatic effect on everyone else in the store. All of a sudden she was the focus of stares. Collecting a few items on the way to the dressing room, the saleswoman sent her in to change. When Rose came out again in a cream sweater and a black and grey plaid skirt, she found about twenty people had gathered to have a look at the blonde American girl, and some were so eager to get a glimpse that they were standing on things. Many were taking pictures with their cell phones. It was worse than press conferences with the Titans, but at least here they were keeping a polite distance.

"Why?" she whispered to Yukie as she glanced around at her rapt audience while trying to look like she was only checking the fit in the three-way mirror.

"The Japanese gene pool rarely produces blue eyes and never natural blonds," Yukie explained. "Seeing as you are young and beautiful as well, that makes you Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johanson, and Jennifer Lawrence rolled into one."

"But I'm not really blonde, I just don't have any pigment in my hair. It's a mutation I got from Dad. Would they go around staring like this at him?"

"Of course not. You read as blonde because you're so young. He's obviously not young, he's enormous, and he looks as though he would knock someone's teeth in at the slightest provocation, if not worse," Yukie pointed out.

"If this keeps up, I might!"

Yukie ignored that, and asked a question instead. "Are you sure you want to buy a skirt? Jeans are more your style."

"I think it'll be easier for me to manage, um, you know, in skirts," Rose answered. After all, skirts could be pulled up to use the toilet, not taken off like a pair of jeans.

"I can't argue with that. Here, what do you think of this?" Yukie passed her a flowing silk blouse with a floral pattern in shades of blue.

"I'm willing to try anything."

—Several hundred dollars later—

"Thank you very much for all your help," Rose said to the saleswoman, bowing.

The woman was, (appropriately, given the name of the shop,) beaming. "You are very welcome, and thank you. I hope you will come back to Ray Beams again while you are visiting Japan. We would be very glad to help you find souvenirs for all your friends." The woman bowed to Rose, and then to Yukie. "Your daughter is not only lovely, she has very nice manners. It was a pleasure helping you today."

"Her father and I thank you," Yukie replied, bowing in return. Once they were out of earshot, she said to Rose. "See? That wasn't so hard. I do apologize for not correcting her. It was much simpler to let her assume that I'm your mother."

"That's okay," Rose said, and surprisingly, it was okay. "I wish I'd had the chance to do things like this with my mom. Where to now?"

Yukie answered, "I would like to look for a new ski jacket for myself. The dry cleaner ruined mine trying to get candle wax and pine sap off it. Never put your gear under Christmas decorations that might drip. Then I think we need a restorative cup of tea and scones."

"Can we get the tea and scones first? Breakfast seems like it was a very long time ago."

"I don't see why not." That was one of the nice things she was learning about Yukie: she was reasonable. It was never a matter of 'Because I say so.' "But if you don't hide your hair, I'm afraid your entourage will follow us."

"Ugh, don't even joke about it!" Rose wore some of her purchases out of the store, including her new coat, but since she'd been watched every moment she wasn't in the dressing room, anyone who still wanted to gawk could spot her whether she hid her hair or not. It was flattering and creepy at the same time.

The tea room was, much to Rose's surprise, a very proper British tea room like something out of the Victorian era, complete to the staff's outfits, although she was sure miniskirted maids were not authentic for the period. Nor were all the servers female; there were two handsome young men dressed as butlers. She and Yukie were shown to a seat by the window, where they could see the street. And be seen; Rose was sure the hostess had given them a prominent place so her hair could attract attention.

Yukie ordered Earl Grey tea and ginger scones with jam, and Rose did the same, since she couldn't read the menu beyond the few kana words scattered on it. Her problem with kanji was still, well, a problem. Then they waited, and Rose took the time to study Yukie surreptitiously in the mirror on the wall cattycorner from them. Women always judge other women by their fashion or lack thereof with a glance and an accuracy Sherlock Holmes would envy.

Yukie wore a beige pantsuit with a dark red turtleneck, a black coat and a Burberry plaid scarf. The outfit was well put together from a coordinating point of view, and if in Rose's opinion, it was kind of dull and businesslike, well, Yukie was older than she was. Clothes may make the man, but you can tell a lady just by looking.

Then Rose took a look at herself, not just at the fit of her new garments, but at herself. No longer a disaffected retro-grungy urban chick, she now looked both younger and somehow more mature than before. No, not mature. Sophisticated. The saleswoman had taken her to the makeup counter and turned her over to the aesthetician, who made her up in 'Byojaku' style. That seemed to mean touching up her brows and lining her eyes with a light brown pencil, a hint of blush, coral-nude lipstick, and then plenty of mascara.

It was not too surprising that the saleswoman would assume they were mother and daughter, provided you accepted that Rose was biracial. It wasn't so much a matter of facial features as…Rose didn't know what name to put to it.

What did she know about her father's girlfriend now, after a few hours spent shopping with her? She was calm and patient, insightful and compassionate enough to let Rose stay in Tokyo and join them on vacation. Yet she also seemed to think that becoming an assassin was a reasonable career choice. That was contradictory.

She tried to imagine ever calling Yukie 'Mom'. It didn't work. Yukie was Yukie.

"Penny for your thoughts—or is it two cents worth of thoughts?" Yukie asked.

"Oh—just about what you said earlier, that an interviewer would reject you for being too old. You really don't look mid-thirties. I wouldn't say you were more than twenty-five at the most." That was Rose being polite. She would have thought Yukie was about thirty, but shaved five years off to be nice.

"Why do you think I'm in my mid-thirties?" Yukie asked, her brow furrowing slightly.

"Aren't you? Dad said he doesn't know exactly how old you are, but he thought somewhere around there. Is he wrong?"

"I decline to answer." Yukie sipped from a glass of ice water.

"Then he_ is_ wrong. Is he a little wrong or a lot wrong?" Rose pounced on that. "And which way is he wrong? Younger or older? Um, if it's okay to ask. Scratch that, I know it's rude. Sorry."

"I'm not offended," Yukie replied. "It's only human to be curious, and you've done very well today. Asking the saleswoman to forgive any social errors was inspired. Do that wherever you go, and you'll be fine. It's charming—and disarming. The polite form of speech is also called the submissive form, but I prefer to think of it as the subversive form instead. You can often manipulate people into doing what you want by saying something the right way. In the States they call it passive-aggressive behavior, but I say: Whatever works.

"Keep on as you are, remember the things I've said about never blowing your nose in front of people and such, and before you leave Japan, you'll be ready for the post-graduate course in etiquette—how to wear, walk, and sit in kimono and geta. That's something that has to be taught; it doesn't come naturally. Sometimes I want to cry when I see a young girl clumping along in a furisode with mannish strides. Ah, here's our tea."

A butler brought it to their table in a tall, top-heavy pot along with a cake plate piled with hot scones. The maid behind him had the sugar bowl, creamer, and two little dishes with jam and whipped cream, along with bone china cups and plates. All the china had a pretty pattern of a strawberry vine on them, flowers and fruit both.

"Oh, that looks good!" Rose said, looking at it. It went with the atmosphere of the whole tea room, which was feminine in the extreme, like the girls who dressed up in Alice-In-Wonderland clothes. Then she giggled a little. "Can you just imagine Dad in a place like this? Talk about a bull in a china shop!"

"I can imagine the look on his face," Yukie's face burst into a conspiratorial smile. "Something like when he realizes a meal is going to be vegetarian, only worse, bordering on horrified."

That made Rose laugh. "I've never seen him make that face. I've seen him when I miss a target he thinks I should have hit, though."

"Enough about him," Yukie chided. "You're trying to make me break my rule again. Do you know how to eat scones? You're not supposed to make little jam and cream sandwiches out of them, but—."

"Oh, I know this! You never cut it with a knife, you use your fingers to break it open on your plate, then you scoop some jam and cream from the pots onto the side of your plate, and spread them on your scone bite by bite. Small bites, too. Wintergreen taught me that." Rose's breath suddenly hitched in her chest. "He was British. He's dead now. Did Dad ever tell you about him?"

"No, never," Yukie said, putting dollops of jam and cream on the side of her plate as perfectly as any English lady.

"He was—he was sort of Dad's right arm. And he was my friend. He was the nicest person I ever met, and he died horribly because of us, our family. I'm sorry. Whenever I think about him—." Tears were stinging her eyes, and she blotted them carefully with a tissue. "It isn't safe, knowing us. Knowing Dad, really. But either of us. You'd be safer if you stayed away from anyone named Wilson."

"I'm aware of that. Yet neither danger nor disagreeableness frighten me off; I don't let them. There are more than enough compensations in knowing the two of you." Yukie said, quite gently. "And if you wish to talk about Wintergreen later, I would like very much to hear about your happy memories of him. Right now, though, there are tea and scones, neither of which are as good cold as hot."

That meant, 'I understand and I'm sympathetic, but breaking down crying in the middle of a tea room full of people isn't good.' The tea room had been quiet and only about a quarter full when they entered, but now it was filling up. And yes, a fair number of people were surreptitiously gawking at Rose. Of course, a fair number were openly gawking at her, too.

Then it happened. Somebody shoved their chair back just as a waitress went by their table, the girl stumbled, and their teapot, which was stupidly designed to have more weight at the top than the bottom, fell not only over, but off the table, lid first and head down.

Yukie caught it, righted it, and set it back on the table in one smooth gesture. Not just the lid, not just the pot, but the tea as well, and the pot had been at least half-full. Only a drop or two splashed on the tablecloth to show anything had happened.

That took reflexes. World class reflexes, as good as Rose's own or even better. Rose had noticed Yukie's flickering way of moving first thing the night before, but she hadn't asked and Yukie hadn't told.

What had her father said about Yukie? 'She's an expert in Jian Wu, but primarily a noncombatant.'

With reflexes like that, Rose believed the first, but what could explain the second?

She resolved to ask her father about that at the earliest opportunity.

* * *

A/N: Another week that was not conducive to writing, but I managed it anyway! Thank you to Tev and Paisleyluv96 for your reviews. They help a lot toward keeping me writing, as this fic has had a lukewarm reception otherwise. Speaking of which…

Cold-Blooded has gone through some major changes since I started writing it, and I know it still has problems, even though I think some of it is my best work. It may be revised some more; I'm searching for a beta who isn't already a friend. (Tev and Swordstitcher, I love you both, but I think it may work better this way. A stranger will be more objective.)


	18. Slade: Ramen and Reasons

Slade returned to the ryokan, pleased with the results of his meeting. Traveling with Yukie and Rose was going to prove very useful as cover. A man traveling alone, especially a foreigner as distinctive in appearance as he was, attracted unwanted attention. A couple was much less conspicuous, and a family traveling together could hardly be more innocuous. Five jobs lined up for Tokyo and two others, one each in Kyoto and Okinawa. Then there was the big job in North Korea, to which he had not yet committed himself, as it would take several days at least. If he added it on to the end of this jaunt, that would mean leaving Yukie to either spend another week in Japan on her own or fly back to the states alone…

He heard voices, footsteps coming closer down the ryokan's hall. No need to tense up—it was them.

"Hey, Dad!" Rose breezed in with more energy than he'd seen in her in a long time, swinging shopping bags in both hands. She no longer looked, he noted, like a waif who was prepared to hook up with nearly anyone just to have somewhere safe to spend the night. Instead she looked very young and fresh in a coat the color of bluebells and a winter white cabled sweater over a dark plaid skirt. Her face was barely made up at all.

"Hello yourself. You look very nice. I take it you had a good time. That's fine, but I'm not sitting through any fashion show," he informed her.

"Who's offering one?" Rose retorted, but with good humor in it. "Let me go stash these and then let's go to lunch. I'm starving!"

Yukie followed, carrying a bag of her own, and judging by the expression on her face he concluded that the morning had gone as well as he could have wanted.

"Now if it's you who's offering the fashion show, I might be up for it," he confided in her while wrapping an arm around her waist and drawing her closer. "Later, with the condition that—."

"I can guess the condition," she interrupted with a smile, putting a finger to his lips. "and I agree. Later. However, all I bought was a new ski jacket."

"With a GPS built into the zipper pull!" Rose returned to the suite. "There's all this stuff for sale here that we don't have in the States yet. Oh, come on! No displays of affection in front of me, okay? I know this is kinda like your honeymoon, and that's _good_ and all, but I'm young and impressionable."

"You were the one who snuck out of the country and flew here to observe how we interact, so no complaining when we do. There's no one as puritanical as the young," he replied.

"Well, somebody has to be! Yukie, what are we doing for lunch? And what about after?" Rose asked.

"For lunch I thought we'd just go to Raishuken for ramen. It's walking distance from here. Have you ever had a proper bowl of ramen, Rose? I don't mean the dried kind from the supermarket. I mean with fresh noodles, good ingredients and broth that tastes of something other than salt and MSG."

"I didn't know there was any other kind," Rose said.

"Prepare to be amazed, then. in Japan, ramen is not junk food or fast food. It is an art form and an obsession. Afterward, we begin our personally guided tour of Haunted Japan with visits to two shrines in the area," Yukie said, leading them out of the ryokan into the frigid air of the afternoon. "That is to say, personally guided by me."

"Haunted?" Rose exclaimed.

"'Supernatural' would be more accurate, but I think 'haunted' sounds better. Do you know what yurei or yokai are and what the difference is? Either of you?" She looked from father to daughter.

"No," Rose replied.

"Not in the least," Slade responded.

"Then I will explain. Yurei are simple to explain: they're ghosts. More specifically, angry or unsatisfied ghosts who want to take it out on people. The sorts of people who become yurei are not those who die in their own beds of natural causes at the age of ninety with their families gathered around them. Their deaths were usually untimely and involved great pain and suffering. Without exception, they had time to form a… 'Grudge' doesn't begin to cover it. 'Dying curse' is better, but not complete, because some are motivated by other passions. Let's just say they died in sufficient emotional turmoil that they couldn't shed their attachment to the world and move along as they should have.

"Yokai are more complicated. They're supernatural beings something like fairies or pixies in the Western world, but then there also nature spirits of water and forests, like the dryads and naiads of Ancient Greece, only not as harmless. We even have our own version of a unicorn, the kirin. Some are monsters and ogres, some are shapeshifting, sentient animals, and then there are those which were once inanimate objects which have gained a life of their own through long use by humans. Have you ever had a kitchen knife that cut you every time you used it, almost as if it were actively malicious?"

"No, but there is this one computer that kept crashing whenever _I_ went to use it—and nobody else," Rose said.

"That is exactly what I meant. Now, in terms of yokai, some are harmless, a few are helpful, most are at worst mischievous, and a few are murderous. In appearance they range from common household objects like an old umbrella, to cats with two tails or foxes with as many as nine, to a giant head without a body, and everything in between. A yokai might even be so human that her husband wouldn't notice any difference until one day she turned into a gust of snow and disappeared forever." Yukie waved a hand in the air in imitation of wind.

"The Yuki-Onna!" Rose put in excitedly. "I loved that story. It was the best of the four."

"You watched _Kwaidan_?" Yukie asked.

"Sure did—and I got an A plus on my essay comparing _Throne of Blood_ to _Macbeth_."

"Excellent! Have you tried _Ran_ yet?"

"Yes! It was so—so—ooh!" Words apparently failed his daughter. "I mean, the Shakespeare movies they show us in class usually have a stick up their…They take themselves too seriously. Except for that _Romeo + Juliet_ with Leonardo DiCaprio, that was just loud and stupid. I never knew Shakespeare could be so exciting! You know my favorite moment in_ Ran_? It was when the youngest son went and cut—."

"—cut the branches and then stuck them in the ground so his father could sleep in their shade." Yukie finished with her.

"Yes! It said _everything_ about how he felt about his father, without saying one word."

"Kurosawa's films are full of moments like that. Have you seen _I Live In Fear_?" Rose shook her head. "In it, there's a scene where a wealthy man's adult children are trying to have him declared incompetent, which he is not, not at that time. He's simply afraid of nuclear war. They're all crowded into a stifling hot law office, decrying him as a selfish monster, when he appears with cold sodas for all of them, neatly underscoring who the selfish monsters truly are. Despite the unconvincing age makeup on Toshiro Mifune, it is a fine film, if a trifle out of date."

"Nuclear war and sodas? You mean it's modern-day?" Rose asked.

"It was made in 1955. Kurosawa made many films besides historical dramas…"

Slade smiled to himself as he followed them down the street. It was possible that Yukie and Rose would have disliked each other; possible, but unlikely in the extreme. Yukie, he knew, suffered from infertility, and 'suffered' was the right word for it. She had only spoken of it once or twice, and casually at that, but he had seen how she looked at children of all ages when she thought he wasn't looking, from the babies in slings to young teens. Rose's need for a mother was as obvious and palpable.

Rose needed a mother. Not just a mother, the right mother. Not a hopeless idealist who wrung her hands when it came to taking a life, or a vicious maniac who giggled while killing for fun, but someone who understood necessity and could act without flinching, someone who knew what loyalty meant and even valued honor. If he had, by his decisions and actions, deprived Rose of one mother, he would make it up to her by giving her another.

If Rose needed a mother, then he needed a Wintergreen. To secure both in one person was as unlikely as hot ice or a politician who kept promises, and yet there was Yukie. Marrying again... Yukie was as different from Adeline as salt was different from pepper, and that was good. He and Addie had been too much alike in the wrong ways, too angry from the start, she because she was a soldier who was not allowed to be a soldier, he because...of an old man he kept alive at great expense in a hospital bed so that whenever he felt like it he could go and rub his father's nose in how he thrived and prospered.

Of course, sooner or later, Rose would ask how he really felt about Yukie, if he loved her. It was an inevitable question. How to explain it to a sixteen year old girl with a head full of fairy tales and romantic notions from the movies? When you were young, it was all about how the other person made you feel, but when you were older it was about the relationship itself. Lying was the simplest answer, but Rose was starting to develop a disconcerting perception.

_Then don't lie. It's not a lie if you believe it when you say it. _

It was simply a matter of getting into the proper frame of mind...

A lengthy but fast-moving line of people in front of Raishuken attested to the popularity and quality of their ramen. Yukie ordered for all of them when they reached the counter, three bowls of soup, two beers and a bubble tea, which Rose was familiar with from some chain back in the States.

Rose watched them pour beer for each other, and observed, "I guess that must be good manners, too."

"It is," Yukie confirmed. "When you're in a group, pouring your own drink is selfish. Pouring each other drinks is generosity."

"Is the drinking age the same here as home?" his daughter asked, a little too ingeniously.

"It's twenty here, which makes you still too young," Yukie told her.

"But-I know I saw cans with that label in some vending machines today. Was it some nonalcoholic version?" Rose's brow furrowed.

"No, it was real beer," was Yukie's reply. "Japanese society, as a rule, is just so law-abiding that they can put beer in vending machines and most youths don't break the law. It helps that alcoholism isn't really seen as a disease here. Drinking is regarded as a societal pressure valve, and even if an employee is very rude to his boss when drunk, he'll be forgiven. Ah, here's our ramen!"

The server set three huge, steaming bowls down in front of them. Atop the noodles swimming in at least a quart of rich broth, an array of tasty looking edibles reposed: slices of barbequed pork, squares of dark green nori, bamboo shoots and mushrooms, fresh greens, and spring onions.

"It looks good and smells even better," Yukie sniffed the steam happily. "Now, eating ramen is one of the finer points of etiquette, so watch me and do _exactly_ as I do."

Yukie took a pair of disposable bamboo chopsticks from their wrapper, said "Itadaikimasu!" with her hands together as in prayer, snapped the chopsticks apart, and smiled at her bowl. With that, his sophisticated, cultured girlfriend proceeded to slurp and scarf down her ramen like his son Grant did a bowl of Cocoa Puffs at age four.

She paused to chuckle at Rose's shocked expression. "Yes, this is how you eat it! Isn't that right?" She appealed to the lunchtime crowd around them.

"Yes!" they returned in a ragged chorus, with smiles and gestures to eat up.

What could they do but follow suit? The broth was rich, the noodles firm and flavorful, and the toppings elevated the whole from merely good to excellent.

"Mmmmphf! I can't _believe_ you can eat that fast!" Rose said, pausing for breath between swallows.

"Haven't you seen any competitive eating championships? Sudo Miki is this year's world class women's champion. We Japanese women know how to put it away when we want to." Yukie set down an empty bowl.

"Unbelievable!" Rose said, looking at her three quarters full bowl.

"Generations upon generations of Japanese women developed the ability to eat super fast because they had huge families to take care of. It was the only way they got a bite to eat at all," Yukie explained mock-solemnly. "Through necessity, we have evolved into some of the fastest _and_ heartiest eaters on the planet. Can I have an order of wontonmen, please?" She directed the question to their server.

This illustrated the other reason to marry Yukie. Being with her was fun.

"And two more beers," Slade ordered. "For that matter, I'll have the wontonmen as well."

"You, too?" Rose eyed his mostly empty bowl.

He raised it and drained it of the last dregs of broth and noodles. "The problem is, you're not serious about your food or anything else," he chided her. "Train like you should be training, and you'd be putting away four thousand calories a day and never gain an ounce."

"If it all tasted like this, I'd have to," she groaned.

"Less talking, more eating," Yukie tapped her chopsticks against her bowl. "You'll need the strength for the walking we're going to do."

"Uh-Say, can I ask you both something that's maybe a little nosy?" Rose said.

"You can ask," Slade replied, taking the beers. "That won't guarantee you an answer, though."

"How did you two meet? Dad said it had something to do with martial arts, but he didn't tell me anything else. Could you tell me about it? Please?"

He exchanged looks with Yukie, and she smiled. "I have no objections," was her reply.

"All right," he agreed. "It was at the Jian Wu World Championship two years ago. Not the one they show on television, the underground one with real blades. I'd been to the previous year's as a spectator."

"I don't know that much about Jian Wu," Rose confessed. "Just that it's the Sword Dance and has a lot of rules and even more maneuvers."

"Only when you get to the highest levels," Yukie accepted her bowl of wontonmen from the server with thanks. "You don't get to use practice blades or perform the leaps until you have mastered each of the six basic maneuvers at tempo with hand strikes and both feet firmly on the floor, which takes many boring years of hard work. Most hopeful practitioners quit within six months when they realize they won't reach seventh level for a decade or more. Of course, if one is already a martial artist of the highest order, it takes rather less time. A year can suffice, in that case." She nodded toward him.

"Is that how long it took you, more than ten years?" Rose asked.

"Yes. I began in elementary school, and I got as far as the tryouts on the national level before I had to give it up," Yukie plucked a wonton from the bowl with her chopsticks and popped it into her mouth. After she chewed and swallowed, she went on.

"I was twenty then. The competition was held outdoors in July. I qualified for the nationals, bowed to the judges, left the ring, took five steps and woke up in the hospital the next day. I was told I came very close to dying that day. I suffer from a condition called hypohydrosis, which means I cannot perspire. Consequently, I am prone to heatstroke. Fortunately for me, my grandmother also had hypohydrosis, so my family realized what was wrong when I was still just a baby.

"That embarrassingly public spectacle ended my career as a professional martial artist. No one wants a team member with fragile health, and sponsors don't want to back one either, which applies just as much in the world of the costumed adventurer as the professional athlete."

"Hypohydrosis," his daughter tried out the word. "I've never heard of that before. What causes it?"

"There are over thirty known causes, ranging from adverse reactions to medication to skin tumors and Parkinson's disease," Yukie replied. "None of which apply to me, as it happens. Some of the best doctors both in Japan and in America admit that my case baffles them. In twelve years, one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, by whom I mean Victor Fries, could find neither the cause nor the cure. He did offer to make me a streamlined version of his suit, but I declined. All I need to do is stay in where it's air conditioned when I can and take sensible precautions when I can't."

"That's awful," whispered Rose.

"Oh, don't look so stricken, Rose! I was very unhappy for a while, but I got over it. If Jian Wu was my one and only talent, my life would have been over, but I was already studying finance. I've a very exciting life and fulfilling career without competing in the Sword Dance, and I practice the forms and maneuvers every day to stay fit and active."

"But if you're that good..." Rose said.

"There are hundreds of people as good or better, including the two of you. The mention of my career as Dr. Fries' assistant brings us back around to the topic at hand, which is how I met your father, although it seems to me I am doing more than my share of the telling so far."

"Your story is not mine to tell," he replied. "I'll jump in when I enter the picture."

TBC...

A/N: Wontonmen is ramen with wontons instead of noodles. You can guess why. The next chapter is half written already. My thanks to my reviewers, BatBratScorp, Tev, Swordstitcher, and Son of Whitebeard. I really love getting feedback from my readers, BTW. (Hint!)


	19. Rose: The Litmus Test

Rose had read somewhere that a couple who were likely to last always had a great story about how they met, or at least they made it sound great when they told it together. She had maneuvered to get a seat on her father's blind side the better to watch him while they talked, hopefully without his noticing. It was also her way of asking why Yukie was a noncombatant without asking directly.

She ate her ramen, listened and watched the two of them while Yukie briefly explained how she had promised Mr. Freeze that if he trusted her with handling his finances, she would see to it he never had to interrupt his research for lack of funds again. However, he was already badly in debt, and it was a struggle to keep her promise even when money started coming in. Then she learned that the Jian Wu World Championship was going to be held in Gotham City that year, and decided to take a chance at clearing all the debt at once.

Her father listened too, and the expression on his face was that of someone who had heard the story before but was open to hearing it again. He didn't cut her off or hurry her along—a positive sign.

Yukie said, "..then when I went to place my bets, the bookies suddenly went mad. '_He's_ here?! Clear the board!', only they were more profane about it. I looked at the screen, and that was the first time I ever saw your father's face." She bowed her head, just a fraction, and looked at him sideways with a shy smile. "There were younger men and prettier men there, but none with a fraction of his presence. He made them look like mooncalves and fledglings. I couldn't stop staring—I had to fight to tear my eyes away."

"Why bother?" He smiled lazily and smugly, with a hint of twinkle in it. "Obviously you liked what you saw."

"Yes, but I didn't want you to catch me staring at you! It would have been horribly embarrassing, and you might have taken it the wrong way. Besides, I was also annoyed with you."

"Annoyed? With me?" he asked, putting on an joking, amazed expression.

"Yes!" Her smile flashed white. "Because you were so bored during the elimination rounds. That was when I decided, if somehow I faced you in the seventh round, I was going to _make_ you take it seriously. I was going to make you take _me_ seriously as an opponent."

"You did that," he chuckled. "That and more."

"Wait a minute—you went up against _each other?"_ Rose asked.

"Eventually," Yukie said.

"But if you want to talk about first impressions, when_I_ first noticed _you_, it was at the start of the seventh round and you were wringing out your hair."

"Oh! I didn't know that was when you first saw me," Yukie protested. "No, don't tell her!" Her face flushed with embarrassment.

He turned to his daughter. "She was wearing white with a tasteful pattern of fresh bloodstains, and about forty gallons of water."

"To keep from overheating as I did at the tryouts! I didn't want to faint again," she explained.

"Her only accessories were a pair of butterfly swords in carbon steel," he continued as Yukie seized her bowl and began devouring her wontonmen to cover her consternation, "but what I noticed even more than that was that she, unlike most of the women who go into costumed adventuring these days, was serious about it."

"What do you mean, 'most of the women in costumed adventuring'?" Rose asked, offended. After all, plenty of her friends were women or girls who had gone in to exactly that, including she herself

"I suppose your crowd is a bit young for what I'm talking about. A lot of women in the business these days treat it like they're going into the field of entertainment—_adult _entertainment," he snorted. "Cosmetic surgery, costumes that are more lingerie or body paint than armor, hair, makeup—the works. Sometimes I wonder if they're there to fight or to fu—for a photo shoot."

"Nice save there, Dad," Rose said. "But I _have_ heard that word before—and even used it."

Her father didn't bother to comment on that, but went on to say, "Everything about Yukie was real. That made her the most intriguing woman there." Now Yukie's face was even pinker.

After downing some beer, he continued, "Her first opponent was a League assassin, one of Talia's bodyguard. You have to wonder what _they_ have to get done to become her body doubles."

"Oooh," Rose winced, "I haven't fought any of them yet, but Robin has and he says they've got _sick_ skills."

"By that I'm guessing you mean the opposite," Slade Wilson eyed her, "but in comparison, Yukie made her skills look sick. She trimmed the woman's hair for her and was starting to cut off her costume bit by bit when the woman got so angry she fouled herself up."

"She had the commonest high-level problem, being unable to concentrate on her own drummer," Yukie demurred. "Her teacher should have rigged up headphones to play two different songs at once, one in each ear, and made her wear them until she learned how to pay attention to only one. That's what mine did. I did throw up a few times at first, but it was worth it."

"Threw up? Why?" Rose cried out.

"Aural dissonance can cause physical nausea," Slade Wilson commented.

"It was not as bad as having the flu," Yukie reassured her. "Only like a very bad period."

That made her father laugh. "That reminds me of something your mother said when I was in training. She broke the nose of a soldier she was instructing in hand-to-hand, and he came up spurting blood, mad as hell and swinging. Some men just can't take being beaten by a woman. She flipped him over, dumped him on his ass and said, 'I outrank you, soldier. Go get yourself to the medic before I bust you for disorderly conduct and assault on an officer.' As he walked away, she said to the rest of us, 'I'm a _girl_. I know how to deal with a bleeding pussy.' He washed out fast after that."

"Mom _never_ said that!" Rose burst out, scandalized.

"She did," he informed her. "And then…You know, we've all finished eating. We should pay up and move along."

"DAD!" Rose wailed.

"We can walk _and_ talk," Yukie said, conciliatory.

Once they were out on the sidewalk, Rose prompted, "So _what happened_ when you two faced each other?!" She eyed them as they strolled along. Her father and Yukie weren't holding hands or hanging on each other, but there was a relaxed familiarity there.

"Once all the others had been eliminated, one way or another," her father picked up the tale, "there we were in the ring. And yes, I admit that up until then I had been lazing around. That changed when Yukie completed one of the more challenging forms and struck at me. I heard the crowd roar before I felt the wound." He bent his head toward her and pulled the strap of his eye patch away from his ear far enough to show her a scar.

"She got by your defenses?" Rose looked at Yukie, impressed.

"And then told me off," Slade Wilson nodded. "I was furious, of course, not so much that she sliced me up as because I was slacking, and you know my pride. If she wanted to duel me, then I would oblige. I launched into an even more difficult maneuver, and she topped it, and then she did it again. Then…"

He paused. "Then I saw there was this flame of joy in her, and I…wanted to know what it felt like to be warm. In two years, somehow that flame hasn't been extinguished, and I haven't felt the cold in quite a while."

"Oh," Yukie said, and Rose shot a glance her way. Yukie looked very young and vulnerable at that moment, like a kitten looking up at a new human with all the wonder and curiosity in the world in her eyes. Then she shook herself. "But Slade, you needn't work so hard. You won me long ago."

"Maybe I just wanted to say it. Anyhow, that required a change in strategy. 'Sorry I slashed your face open, but you fought well. Would you like to go out to dinner?' is a pickup line that's guaranteed to fail with every woman in the world."

"It might work with Harley Quinn," Yukie pointed out. "But I agree, it would not have worked with me."

"_Harley Quinn_?" he repeated, and the look on his face had to be the vegetarian dinner reaction. "Not with any woman I'd touch with a ten foot pole, then. So I faced the difficulty of how to let her win without seeming to lose."

"So you won," Rose said, "but it was a gimme."

"A 'gimme'? I don't know what that is, but it makes it sound easier than it was," Yukie said, "As your father trained you, you know that sparring with him is like hurling oneself against a boulder over and over again. There is no wearing it down. He spun out the duel until the timer ran out, though I was beginning to flag, not so much from heat as from overall exertion. My vision was blurry, my lungs full of hot coals, and the veins in my head would surely have burst had it continued any longer. There was nothing left of me to fight on with. All I hoped for was to last out the round, and I did—but then I felt his blade on my neck." She pulled the cowl of her turtleneck down to show a thin white line.

"Whoa!" Rose said.

"Yes," Yukie nodded, "When I am calm and rational, which is most of the time, I do not fear death, but when I felt his blade cut me, I knew terror."

"I was very careful," he reassured Rose, "and my timing was perfect, just after the clock ran out. Just after. The judges had no choice but to declare her the winner."

"Yes," Yukie confirmed, "but at the time I was too bewildered to realize why. Not until I went for first aid, and your father was there waiting for me. We have been together ever since."

"Wow," Rose marveled, "The way you tell it, it sounds—well, romantic, in a way." _I think…that really was a great story. They're going to be together a long time. Unless something bad happens to Yukie first._ Already that was a pit-of-the-stomach hurtful thought. She scrambled to cover it with another question. "When did you know it was going to be serious, not just dating? Then, or later?"

"For me it was later, about a month and a half later," her father said, "We went out to dinner, and were rudely interrupted by a rocket launcher, followed by a squad of mid-level mercs out to finish the job. The way she acted, you'd think that happened to her every day. That night, I thought to myself, 'This one's going to be important.'"

"Well, it was in the Gotham area. Such occurrences are common." Yukie pointed out. "Also, I was on the freeway the day the Joker played goose—no, played _chicken_ with the Batmobile and flipped the tractor trailer. After that, it is not true to say that anything less is anticlimactic, but it does put it in perspective."

"That's also why the percentage of citizens with PTSD in the Gotham area is more than five times the American norm, as is the suicide rate. It's the equivalent of a war zone," he replied.

"Um, is it possible your adrenal glands are as wonky as your sweat glands?" Rose wondered. "In Bio, we learned that adrenaline is responsible for controlling the body's response to stress. Maybe those glands don't work for you either, and that's why you don't get stressed out."

"No doctor has ever suggested that might be the case," Yukie answered, "and I've been tested for everything."

"Oh. It was just an idea. What about you? When did you first realize this was serious?" Rose asked.

"There was no single moment," Yukie said after a pause, "but there were many moments that added up the way individual frames of film make a moving picture. Perhaps a better question is, when did I first realize he was serious?"

"Okay. When did you?" Rose was willing to settle for that.

"When he dropped a jewelry box into my lap and told me to blame you if I didn't like it."

A/N: Yeah, this chapter is about the feels. Thank you Swordstitcher for your review, and thank you also to Rantojax for reading all the way through and propping up my writing ego while it wilted. Next chapter will be visits to the shrines!


	20. Rose: Enshrined

Nestled among the skyscrapers of Tokyo's financial district was an incongruity: a sliver of land devoted to a small granite shrine set in a garden, now snow-covered and pristine. Yukie led them to the entrance but stopped before they went into the shrine itself, a stone pillar engraved with kanji flanked by pedestals with arrangements of branches of pine and holly. A small altar before it was spread with offerings, bottles of sake and such, while an incense burner in front of that spread a bluish haze of scented smoke through the air.

For some reason, the four corners of the shrine each had a guardian frog (although maybe they were toads.) The frogs did not match, and they looked ridiculous.

"At this moment, you are standing on some of the most expensive real estate on the face of the earth," Yukie informed them. "Every square meter is worth several million dollars. Yet despite the great value of the property, despite its prime location, as the Imperial Palace is only five minutes away, despite the many corporations both foreign and domestic which would gladly pay any price asked to be able to build here, this land remains reserved as a shrine to the memory of Taira no Masakado, Japan's first samurai. Would either of you care to hazard a guess as to why?"

Since her father did not seem inclined to answer, Rose offered, "Because…even though so much has changed, it's still important to remember and honor the past?"

"That's partly correct, and it's the only answer most people will admit to," Yukie nodded her approval. "The real reason is that he doesn't like it when people try to build anything on his last resting place. In truth, it's the resting place of only his head. The rest of him wound up on the location of what is now the Kanda Myojin shrine. Let me go back and relate to you some of his history.

"Masakado was born in the year 903. He was a minor warlord who successfully led a rebellion and assumed control of eight provinces in Eastern Japan, then declared he was the new emperor. The real emperor liked that about as much as you might expect, and it was not long before Masakado was betrayed during a battle and slain. His head was cut off, mounted on a special stand as a trophy, and sent to Kyoto as a present for the emperor, who had it put on public display to show what happened to upstart rebels. That was in 940.

"However, three months later, the head, which by all accounts was still wonderfully fresh and savage looking, disappeared. At the time, it was said that it wrenched itself off its spike and flew off in search of his body in the hopes of reattaching itself and coming back to life properly. I prefer to think that someone who remained loyal to Masakado even after his death took it down and rode away with it in order to see interred honorably. Whatever happened, his head wound up here on this spot in what was then called Shibasaki. Tokyo has been called by several names over the ages, and at the time it was only a small fishing village.

"The villagers were horrified by the appearance of the head in both senses of the word. They washed it, performed the appropriate rites, buried it here and erected a small stone memorial to his memory. For ten years, he rested here peacefully, and the most excitement the villagers had was when Masakado's daughter, Lady Takiyasha, who was a sorceress, came here to summon up a skeletal yokai to take revenge on those who betrayed her sire. The summoning worked very well to all accounts."

"Take notes, Rose," Slade Wilson quipped. "If it comes to it, that's what I expect of you."

"Very funny, Dad. So what happened ten years later?"

"The burial mound started to shake and glow," Yukie replied, "and the ghost of a bedraggled samurai started haunting the neighborhood. They said the proper prayers and he settled down again. For another two hundred and fifty years, all was quiet, but then the Tendai Buddhist sect built a temple here. Masakado did not care for that, and he expressed his displeasure through plagues and natural calamities for a hundred years until a priest of the Amida sect came by and took over tending his shrine. Another three hundred years went by, and the shrine itself was moved, but the memorial remained when the land became the garden of someone's residence. That didn't bother him; as supernatural neighbors go, he was untroublesome as long as he remained untroubled.

"It wasn't until 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake and the subsequent fires destroyed the area, that matters changed. The Ministry of Finance had a look at the land and decided it could be put to better use, erecting an office building on the site. Over the next two years, fourteen Ministry officials met untimely deaths, including the Minister of Finance himself. Many humbler workers suffered inexplicable accidents or became ill in or around the building. The next Minister of Finance remodeled the building to uncover the shrine area and held purification rituals every year until 1940.

"On the millennial anniversary of Masakado's death, lightning struck the Ministry building and burned it to the ground. The Minister of Finance opted to rebuild the memorial rather than the offices, rededicating the shrine with lavish ceremonies. Then World War Two happened.

"When the occupying American forces took over Tokyo, they too decided the land could be put to better use and tried to put a parking lot over it. This did not rest well with Masakado, and the bulldozer sent to level the ground flipped over, killing the driver. Several other, lesser accidents had to happen before the American officials here cancelled the project. From that time until now, Masakado has remained here in peace and quiet, honored as a minor deity and a protector of the city. He is the first example of a yurei on my tour, and as he is likely to remain quiet unless we commit wanton vandalism, we are quite safe. Oh, he's also the only ghost in Japan known to have a bank account. That's where they deposit donations for maintaining the shrine."

Yukie clapped her hands twice and bowed before stepping into the shrine, where she dropped a handful of coins into the donation box. Taking incense from her purse, she lit the sticks and added them to those in the burner. Rose followed her, first clapping and bowing as Yukie had. Her father strolled in after them, although he skipped the clapping and bowing.

"Um—Can I ask a question?" Rose whispered after a moment of silent respect.

"Of course," Yukie replied, "You don't have to whisper. Masakado isn't bothered by noise alone."

"Why the frogs?"

Yukie paused. "I have no idea."

A subway ride brought them to the foot of a hill below another shrine. "Yushima Tenmangu," Yukie explained, "It means 'The Shrine to the God of Learning'. He's called Tenjin now, but when he was a human man, he was called Sugawara no Michizane. Like Masakado, he was elevated to a deity after death, and the shrine's location here near Tokyo University means lots of students come here to pray for help on their exams. I used to come here myself for exactly that reason, when I was going to University there.

"Tenjin was another troublesome yurei in his time—that was why they deified him, to placate his spirit, but he is not the reason why we're here today. There's a yokai associated with this area, one of those created by contact with humans. There used to be a temple near here, but the yokai is one reason why it no longer exists. Let's have a look around before I tell you the story, so you can soak up the atmosphere. There's an easy way to get up the hill and a hard way." She pointed in the direction of each path.

"Hard way," her father said, predictably.

"Um-these are new shoes," Rose decided. "Easy way. I'll meet you at the top."

"All right," Yukie said, "I'll go with you, Slade."

The shoes were an excuse. Rose had felt her phone vibrate, and once her father and his companion were out of sight, she took it out to check who had been texting her.

It was Tim. _'howz Tokyo?'_

_'How did U no?'_

_'Me, rmber? Whn R U cmg bak?'_

That was a conversation she was not looking forward to in any form.

'_Cant chat now. Gt 2 go_.' She sent off the text, and then because she was looking at her phone instead of the path, she set her heel on a patch of ice and half-fell, her phone flying off somewhere while she clutched at a handy tree for support.

"Oh! Are you all right?" A couple of girls coming up the path behind her hurried over to help, one looking for her phone while the other steadied her.

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you," she told the girl at her elbow, who was looking at her with a comically astonished expression.

"But you're not Japanese!" the girl exclaimed. She had dyed her hair auburn and had part of it divided into two poufy pigtails while the rest of it streamed down. "Mi-chan, come look. She looks just like Elsa—or she would if she wore her hair the right way."

"Uh, no. I'm American," Rose explained. "Who's Elsa?"

"The Snow Queen in _Frozen_," the girl said. "I'm sorry, we haven't met yet. I'm Matsuyama Saori, and this is my friend Kanada Michiru."

Michiru was taller than Saori, and her hair was cut short in a chin-length bob. "Here, I think it's okay." She wiped a bit of snow off the case before she handed it back to Rose.

Rose checked it. "It is. Thank you very much. My name is Wilson Rose."

"Amazing. You speak Japanese perfectly!" Saori wondered. "Much better than I speak English—but of course I only started learning for Boot Camp."

"Boot Camp?" Rose asked.

"Yes, Tokyo University Boot Camp," Saori was the more talkative of the two girls, and as the three of them ascended the path together, she explained that they were both enrolled in a special program at their high school intended to get them into Tokyo University, which was the most renowned and exclusive institute of higher learning in Japan. They were exactly the same age as Rose, sixteen.

Michiru seemed shyer, but she nodded and filled in details that Saori left out. It seemed that her father had passed away some years before, leaving few assets other than a corner pub, which her mother now ran. From the look of her clothes, the pub wasn't doing too well. "Our teacher says, 'If you want to change your life, get into Tokyo University.' I want to do something with my life besides pour drinks for sloppy old drunks and mop up after them."

"And I have this other friend. We both tried out for Morning Musume, but she got in and I didn't," Saori said, sounding dejected.

"I don't know what Morning Musume is," Rose confessed.

"It's an all-girl pop group," Michiru said, "There's nobody in it over twenty-five. It's been around since 1997, but they rotate new girls in when the older ones have to leave so it's always fresh. Lots of them become Idols."

"Oh, I see," Rose looked at Saori, "But you know, if I had to choose between being in a group for a few years but I get automatically retired when I'm twenty-five or getting an education at the best university in the country, I'd go to University instead. What would being in a group like that do except prepare you for a career you can't continue in?" She paused.

In a way, wasn't that the same thing as being in the Teen Titans? She had a small living stipend while she was one of them, which was how she hadn't had to touch the trust money from her father. When she left, when she was too old for the Titans, that stipend would stop. Then what would she do, when she had to earn a living? Only rich people could afford to be superheroes full time, especially if they had to pay for armor, weapons and vehicles too.

"That's what I think, too," Saori said, bravely, "That's why we're here today, to ask Tenjin's help. I _really _want to get into Tokyo University."

"It doesn't hurt that lots of college students come here, too," Michiru added. "Guys, that is. But we've been doing all the talking, Saori. Rose hasn't been able to get more than a word in."

"Oh, I'm sorry! We didn't mean to be rude."

"It's okay," Rose reassured her, "I'm here with my father and my…stepmother." The words came out with only a little hesitation. A few white lies, that was all, and not very big ones. So what if she was jumping ahead of events a little? "They're going up by the other path, and we'll meet up at the top. She's Japanese, you see, which is why I speak the language so well. My own mom passed away a few years ago."

"Oh," Michiru, in tones that suggested the light had dawned, and she and Saori exchanged meaningful glances. "Did your stepmother go to Tokyo University?"

"Yes, she did. Then she moved to the States a few years later and worked in the field of cryogenics for ten years before she met my dad. Not as a cryogenicist, but in the finance department. She says she wouldn't want to have to go job hunting here now because they'd reject her because she's a woman and too old by their standards. Do they really make you retire when you have children if you're a woman?"

"Yes. Sometimes not outright. Sometimes they just give you lots more work or transfer you and make you so unhappy that you either quit or do bad work and then they fire you based on your performance reviews. Unless you're something important like a doctor or an architect," Michiru said. "I want to be an architect. We're all applying to the schools of Science or Engineering because they'll be the easiest to get into. There's too much competition for too few spots in Letters and Education, our teacher says. Then once we're in, after a semester we could switch majors if we want to. The important part is getting in."

"Here we are!" Saori sang out.

They had reached the top of the hill and the shrine. Rose looked around. Of all the places they had yet been in Tokyo, this looked the most traditionally Japanese. Two torii archways led the way into the courtyard in front of the main shrine, a wooden building with a peaked and arched roof, ornate with carvings, its dark golden-brown wood enhanced here and there with paint and gilding. The bare trees surrounding the shrine were lacework against the cyan sky.

"Make sure when you go in that you touch one of the bull statues on its head and then touch your own, for luck and wisdom," Saori told Rose.

"Okay…" She looked around, but didn't see her father or Yukie. The shrine wasn't that big, so she wasn't worried about missing them. Maybe they had stopped at one of the little stalls for tea or souvenirs. If they'd stopped to make out or something, she didn't want to know about it, let alone witness it. Following her new friends, she stopped at the bronzes to touch them as she had been instructed. The statues had what looked like red bandannas around their necks—was there some religious reason Japanese shrines had funny animal statues?

Then they led her to a booth where Saori bought a wooden placard with a picture of Tenjin and a bull. "You write what you're praying for on it," she explained, "and then you hang it up on the wall with the others." She bustled over to a table where there were pens to write with.

Rose looked at the price sign—800 yen, which she translated into eight dollars. Michiru hadn't bought one, and her shoes were nearly worn out. Probably she couldn't spare the money. "May I please have two?" she asked the monk who was selling the simple wood pieces, pulling her wallet out of her purse. He took her thousand yen note bills and gave her the placards and her change, which she dropped in the donation box.

"To commemorate meeting today," she said, bowing and presenting Michiru with one of the placards. "Please accept this token."

Michiru smiled suddenly as she hadn't before. "Thank you very much—but you don't have to be so formal with us!"

They took up places at the table with the pens, and Rose paused to think about what she was going to write. It wasn't as if she believed in their traditions—but it couldn't hurt, could it? Finally she wrote, in English, _I want us all to be happy. I want us to be a family._ Then she hung it on the board with everybody else's. So many prayers…

"Now let's take pictures!" Saori pulled out her phone. She held it out at arm's length while they crowded together and smiled. "'Mi-chan and Saori at Tenmangu with our new American friend—Rose!' There! Posted! All the guys in our class are going to be burning up my phone in a little while wanting to know about the beautiful blonde girl," she teased. "And—Uh-oh! There's one already. Not that he's in our class, but he's cute!"

She showed them the screen. Off to the side in the photo was a Japanese youth who was looking very intently at Rose. Perhaps he had come from Harajuku, for his hair was dyed a russet red except for a couple of inches of ivory at the ends, and he had a clever, fox-like face.

"Where'd he go?" Saori asked, looking around. "I don't see—Ah!" Her eyes widened and she jumped because suddenly there was a six-foot-six American with white hair and an eye patch standing behind her.

"Here she is," Slade Wilson called to Yukie, "and it looks like she's found some friends."

TBC…

* * *

A/N: This scene had to be rewritten because I realized that just visiting two shrines in a row more or less the same way was boring even me. Well, I've passed the fifty review mark, yay! Thanks to Tev and Swordstitcher, who are my most faithful friends and reviewers. Without you, I'd be listening to nothing but crickets chirp in here…


	21. Slade: Beneath Her Facade

As they started up the harder path to the shrine, Slade turned to Yukie and remarked, "So, after more than two years together, despite everything we've done and everything we've been through, somehow it never occurred to you to wonder why I made the time to see you at least once a month and often more?" He was not bothering to hide his amusement.

"The—," she paused to think. "The obvious reason was the sex. It has always been very good." The color was up in her face again, and it had nothing to do with the climb. How had he ever thought Cheshire more appealing than Yukie? With women like Jade Nyugen, you got the full effect all in one glance, and beauty was overrated anyway. With Yukie, there was much more to discover.

"You know, I like it when you blush. It reminds me of how you look after you come. If all I wanted was to get laid, the world is full of opportunities. I don't pursue them; I'm not sixteen anymore, with nothing on my mind but fucking. Come October, I'll be sixty. Old enough to know what I want, what I need. Old enough to know what truly matters. I come to you because the body doesn't stay attracted to somebody the rest of you doesn't like."

"The less obvious reason is that you trust me enough to fall asleep afterward. It is not that you think I'm harmless. You think no one is harmless."

"That's not a response to what I just said," he prompted.

"Slade—I have gotten to this point only by telling myself this, what there is between us, is only about sex. It is my coping mechanism. If it is only about sex, then I don't feel as I did when I was married, swimming around and around in a dirty aquarium with the oxygen depleted. If it is only about sex, then some day when you no longer return my calls, I can shrug it off. If it is only about sex, then some day, when someone who knows about us asks me 'Did you hear what happened to Deathstroke?', and I look on line, where there is graphic footage of your terrible death at the hands of an entire army, for I do not doubt it would take nothing less, then I might be rather sad, but not—not destroyed."

She was so serious that it was even more comical. "It's not that difficult to dodge an entire army. They're ill equipped to hunt down only one man. But far be it for me to interfere with your mental processes. All right, despite everything, including this vacation, and that the only other people who would voluntarily afflict themselves with my constant company for eight weeks are those who are so much more afraid of someone else that they're willing to pay me to protect them, this is only about sex. Despite the kindness you're showing my daughter, this is only about sex. Despite—."

"Must you tease me so?"

"I'm merely agreeing with you," he assured her. "It's only about sex. Hold on a moment. _Who _knows about us?"

"Practically everyone who was at the Jian Wu championship, everyone they cared to gossip to, and anyone who they in turn gossiped to. Also those who have watched the video Mr. Cobblepot has of the duel, those who have seen us together in Gotham City—."

"I take your point. Has anyone given you any trouble about it?" he asked.

"No. Between your reputation and my…unprepossessing appearance, very few even mention our association."

"Your unprepossessing appearance?"

"I was told rather recently that I am not what they would have expected you would pick for 'fun and games'," she replied.

"Who are _they_ to presume?"

"He turned up in the river two days later, so he is not presuming anything any longer. Not my doing, though I cannot say I was grieved….Do you truly not pursue those opportunities?" she asked, tentatively.

"Ah—," It took him a fraction of a second to recall what she meant. "Since I decided on you, I have not gone to bed with anyone else in any sense of the word, whether technically in a bed or otherwise. Does that surprise you?"

"Yes. We never made each other any sort of promises. I have not been with anyone else, but then you could no doubt tell as much from a hundred different signs."

"I know." They had reached the shrine, where he scanned the area, looking over the building and the terrace with its bare trees.

"These are plum and apricot trees," Yukie said. "They're the earliest to bloom. In only a few weeks, these will all be in flower, at least here in this area. In the mountains, where we'll be by then, everything will still be too cold. Now where's Rose?"

Looking around for his daughter, they parted company to hunt more efficiently. About Yukie's fears he could do little but—simply continue to be there. Time was the only cure. Clearly he needed to ask her what she was thinking more often. Her feelings were as clear to him as well water, but where Adeline, for example, got mad at other people, Yukie got mad at herself. He could see that now.

However, he was also hoping they ran into Yukie's ex-husband, now brother-in-law, somewhere or other during their trip. Originally he'd thought he might shake the man's hand for lowering her expectations to the point where simply treating her like an adult human being was more than enough and treating her as the treasure she was, overwhelmed her. Now Slade planned to hit him somewhere the worm would _never _forget. Looking forward to it put a smile on his face.

In that frame of mind, he came across Rose, who was talking to two Japanese girls about her age. They started when he joined them, staring at him agog, and small wonder, for he no doubt outweighed the two of them put together, besides being well over a foot taller. Rose performed the introductions, but they could barely squeak out a greeting.

Yukie's arrival put them more at ease, and they welcomed her thankfully. Rose explained why they were there, about their University Boot Camp and their drive to better their lives. "Rose-chan says you are a graduate of Tokyo-University, Kuwano-san," the shorter, auburn haired girl said.

"Yes, I am," she replied. "It was a very positive experience and made all the difference in my life. Your teacher is right. It _will_ change your life. But while it is true that Tokyo University is like a left-eyed flounder and all others are right-eyed flounders—this will take some explaining to Rose and my husband." She got the word 'husband' out without any hesitation, which he took as a positive sign.

"Left-eyed flounders make very delicious sashimi—by left-eyed, I mean that when you place the fish on a table face-up, the fish faces to the left, and right-eyed face to the right—but right-eyed flounders differ a great deal depending on the kind you get and the season of the year. Some have little meat on them or have a muddy taste, but others are very good to eat. Some people even prefer the lighter taste and refreshing texture of the good right-eyed kind. My point is, don't despise all right-eyed flounders just because they aren't left-eyed. The most important thing is that you don't go hungry, if you catch my meaning. Apply to Tokyo University, but apply to a few others besides. Don't starve yourselves just because the left-eyed kind evades your hook."

"Thank you, Kuwano-san," the girls chorused.

"Please, do your very best," she told them. "Now, do either of you know the tale of how the fire of 1689 got started? That was what I brought Rose and her father here for. You're welcome to stay and hear it, if you like."

"Uh—I don't remember how it started, but it killed a hundred thousand people, didn't it?" the auburn haired girl said. "They still sometimes find mass graves when they excavate around the city."

"I remember," said the taller, quieter girl. "It was the Kimono Fire."

"That's right. You see, many years ago, before the fire, there was another building over there," Yukie gestured. "Honmyoji Temple, it was called. One spring day a young woman, sixteen years old like the three of you, went there with her mother to attend services, and afterward they went for a walk in the temple gardens. There she saw a young man, a samurai in training, like a squire would be to a knight in England, hurrying after his master. He was wearing a very fine kimono which caught her eye—I have always imagined it was spring green with decorations in straw yellow and navy blue. They were considered very youthful colors then and doubly appropriate for spring.

"Umeno, for that was her name, fell in love with him. All she ever got was one glimpse of him, but that was enough. She dreamed of him at night, and daydreamed about him during the day. Her parents were surprisingly sympathetic, perhaps because as merchants, marrying their daughter into a samurai family would have bettered their social position a great deal. He would have benefited too, because samurai were paid in rice, not gold, and rice values fluctuated wildly.

"So they asked around after the young man, whose name they did not know, and in the meantime, let Umeno buy a kimono that matched his, except with the long, dangling sleeves that a young and marriageable girl wears. That kind of kimono is called a furisode, and the sleeves are called butterfly sleeves—or husband-catchers."

That made the girls giggle. "I never heard the tale told like this!" the taller girl said. "Please, go on!"

"Thank you! Unfortunately, no one knew who the young man was. Perhaps he was only visiting the city for one day, but it did not matter, because he could not be found. Umeno, heartsick with longing, went into a decline of health and died.

"Her parents were grief-stricken, and wanted to be rid of all the things that reminded them of her. Among these things were her kimono—including the one which matched her lost love's. They donated those to the temple where her funeral rites were held—Honmyoji Temple. The priests accepted the gift, and sold her belongings to raise money to help the poor.

"As I said, her clothing was intended to be worn by a young girl of marriageable age, so they were purchased for a young woman the same age. Married women wear kimono without dangling sleeves, because frankly they're impractical for anything but standing around looking pretty. The girl who got the kimono which matched Umeno's beloved also fell ill and died.

"The kimono was donated back to the same temple, and was again sold to help the poor. Again, it went to another young girl—who took ill and died as well." Yukie paused.

"I find that to be quite credible for reasons other than the supernatural. Suppose what Umeno died of was not a broken heart, but tuberculosis, which is highly contagious. Surely she had worn the kimono often, and a very fine kimono is never washed, any more than a hand-beaded, re-embroidered lace wedding gown is thrown in a washing machine today. It would destroy it. Instead you wear it over garments that can be washed, so it never touches the skin. It could have carried the disease from one girl to another.

"Whatever the causes of their deaths, once the kimono came back to the temple for the third time, the head priest realized something was wrong. The kimono had become a yokai of great and malignant power, and if it continued to exist, it would only cause more death. He called the families of all three girls together and told them what needed to happen. The kimono had to be destroyed with rites that would lay its spirit to rest.

"That called for cremation. 1689 was a very dry year, and most of the city's buildings were made of wood, bamboo, paper and reeds, so it was a good thing the rites were held apart from the rest of the city.

"But no one took into account the strength of the yokai in the kimono. It did not die easily. While it was burning, a fragment broke off, and was carried by the breeze—." Yukie gestured. "And a hundred thousand people died.

"That is the tale of the Kimono Fire."

TBC…

* * *

A/N: I'm sorry it took so long for this chapter to be posted. However, last week I did post a brand new version of Chapter 1, so if you haven't read it, it might be worth a look. I will do my best to get the next chapter up before next weekend. Thank you for bearing with me—especially my most faithful friends and readers, Swordstitcher and Tev!


	22. Rose: The Hurt Locker

Yukie then took her father into the shrine itself to show him around, leaving the girls outside.

Saori confided to Rose, "Your stepmother is just as I thought a woman who graduated from Tokyo University would be. Very intelligent, elegant, and serene. But your father is the most impressive man I've ever seen. He must be taller than Abe Hiroshi! What does he do?"

_Uh-oh._ "He's a—security consultant," Rose replied. That was sort of the truth, wasn't it? As far as it went, anyway.

"A security consultant?" Saori's brow wrinkled. Perhaps the words didn't translate quite the same way in Japanese. "He's clearly a very successful one, because his coat and suit are custom tailored. I can tell."

"Security consultant," Michiru echoed. She had already struck Rose as being the more intelligent of the two girls. "Like a defense contractor, you mean?"

"Something like that," Deathstroke's daughter admitted. "I can't really tell you more than that."

"I see…I know it must be sad that you lost your birthmother, but it seems as though Kuwano-san is a good mother to you in her place. _My _mother makes fun of me for even thinking I might have a chance to go to university, " Michiru said, her eyes speaking of too many long nights spent trying to sleep over a noisy pub, and never enough money. "She says studying is a waste of time when I should be helping in the pub and charming the customers into drinking more. Actually," The girl squinted toward the west, "I'm supposed to be back before it's dark so I can help with the rush-hour crowd. We've got to go, Saori."

"Ohhh, but we're only just started making friends," Saori groaned. "Wait—how long are you going to be in Tokyo? Maybe we could meet up again! If you want to, that is."

"Uh—we're going to be here for three more weeks, but Yukie's planned a lot of things for us to do and see. I'll have to ask." Rose replied. Nobody simply took a liking to her like this back at home. Were people friendlier here in Japan? Or was it because she was an exotic, a blonde foreigner who spoke perfect Japanese? Maybe it was just how Saori and Michiru were.

She did not realize that her usual state of unhappiness was so obvious it came off her in repellant waves, and as much as her parentage had made the Titans reluctant to accept her, her attitude had put them off as well.

Yukie and her father came back out of the shrine, and Rose immediately asked. "I know you have everything planned out, but—?"

"Including free time," Yukie said. "It's entirely up to you."

"In more ways than one," her father added, reminding her that her stay was contingent on her behavior.

_Really, the way the two of them handle things, anyone would think they were married already_.

"I'd love to get together," she told Saori, and the three girls exchanged phone numbers. Michiru's phone was several years older than the others, but obviously she'd taken good care of it.

The two girls waved goodbye as they disappeared down the path. "I like Tokyo," Rose surprised herself by saying aloud. "Or at least, I like what I've seen of it so far. Are all the haunted places we visit going to be historic like these today? I was kind of thinking they'd be, well, scarier."

"Most of them will be more active. This was simply an introduction, to ease us into things. Many of them will still be historic, though." Yukie replied.

"That's cool. What next? Another haunted place, or back to the Ryokan?" The sunset was just starting to color the clouds with hints of lavender and peach.

"There is another place we could visit before we go back," Yukie said. "It's right at the subway station, in fact. But this one is active—and I fear it will break your heart, Rose."

"Active? You mean we'll see a ghost?" she asked as they too started down the path.

"Not see it, no. We'll hear it, though." Yukie replied.

"Why will it break my heart? I know, wait and see, right? By the way, who is Abe Hiroshi?"

"The _only_ man who could _ever_ lure me away from your father," Yukie suddenly grinned, naughty, conspiratorial, and nostalgic all at the same time.

"Who? Who is this?" Slade Wilson was on the alert, scowling.

"Abe Hiroshi is six-two and very well built," Yukie worsened the situation. "Intelligent, handsome, wonderful sense of humor, talented…And he was voted 'The Ideal Boyfriend' by Shojo Jump Magazine's readership ten years in a row. Ten years in a row!"

"Oh, some celebrity you had a crush on when you were a girl," her father calmed down.

"A crush? No, THE one and only crush. I don't know whether he set the standard for what I find most attractive in a man physically, or whether I had such a crush on him because he met those standards, but he certainly made me realize it. He's handsome enough when he's clean-shaven, but in my opinion, when he has a beard and moustache, he's even handsomer. I've read he's married and a father now, so I fear he and I will never be."

Her father was now looking smug, no doubt because he was even taller than Abe Hiroshi, probably better built and definitely had a beard and moustache. "I for one had thoughts about Diana Rigg and Julie Newmar when I was a lad—I won't begrudge you Abe Hiroshi. All the same, Rose, I want you to look him up, fix him in your memory—and then if you see him while we're here, shoot him on sight."

"But I don't have a gun!" Rose pointed out.

"I am _quite_ sure your father means for you to take a picture of him with your camera phone," Yukie said serenely.

"…Yes, exactly," Slade Wilson said—but he winked at his daughter behind Yukie's back.

"Of course," Yukie mused, "if I_ did_ meet him now, I would settle for a one-night stand…"

As the sun set, the evening grew cold. The ghost could only be heard after dark, Yukie told them, and they would have to sit and wait quietly outdoors for it, so they stopped at a café for something hot to drink while they waited—coffee for Slade, royal milk tea for Yukie, (whatever that was) hot chocolate for Rose. The haunted spot was right by a bank of coin-operated lockers where commuters could store things on the way to or from work, and since there were a couple of benches handy, they sat down and waited, Yukie and Slade on one bench, Rose on one cattycornered from them.

A streetlight cast a pool of salmon-pink sodium vapor light down on them. The sky was clouding over as the evening got older, and a few snow flakes tried flurrying to see if they liked it, but never really got it together as snow. Their drinks and their breath both steamed in the air.

Rose sipped her chocolate, waited, and watched the two of them as surreptitiously as she could. Yukie was on her father's blind side, shielded from the street and the cold by his body. He was so much bigger than she was that they should have looked ridiculous together, but they didn't. Her sleek black hair contrasted pleasantly with his crisp white cut when she leaned her head on his shoulder, and she looked quietly radiant.

He turned his head just a little so he could see her face, and something like a smile played around his lips. He murmured something in her ear that Rose did not catch, but it made Yukie sit up straight and glare at him for a moment before she smiled and put her head down on his shoulder again.

Suddenly Rose hurt. She actually, physically hurt as though someone had punched her in the chest. This was what she had flown all this way to see—her father and Yukie together, and while she was not an expert on interpreting people, it sure looked like this was the real thing. Now that she'd seen in, she wanted to scream at her father, to rage at him_, Why couldn't you be like this while I was growing up? Why couldn't you and Mom be like this? Why did I have to wait until now to see what happiness looks like? _

_To see what love looks like_…

She was on the verge of saying something bitter and nasty that would probably get her packed off home when she heard it—the cranky sounds made by a baby that was waking up unhappy. Rose babysat Cheshire's infant daughter Lien, so she knew what a fretful baby sounded like. However, no one was around, and the baby sounded like it was very close to them.

Now it was crying, but something was wrong. It wasn't loud enough. As though it was trying to draw breath, and it couldn't…

"That's a baby!' she cried out. "Where is it? Did somebody abandon it? We have to do something!"

Yukie shook her head and pointed to the bank of coin lockers.

"You mean—?"

"That's the ghost," Yukie confirmed. "More of an echo, really. It used to happen quite a lot—an unwed mother, no man willing to come forward to take responsibility, thrown out by her family, fired by her employer for immorality, shunned by all the good, moral people—and those lockers are just the right size for a pair of shoes—or a newborn."

"No," Rose said. "Oh, no."

Yukie continued, "Not all of the babies died. Sometimes a passerby heard something and rescued them. But other times, especially in the height of summer or the depth of winter, like now, the baby simply slipped out of life more swiftly than it slipped into it. Things are better now. People are more accepting and offer more support, women are stronger, better employed, able to take care of themselves and their baby. Also, now there is reliable, easily obtainable birth control, which makes a _great_ deal of difference. The last case I read about was in 1998, I think, and it wasn't deliberate."

"How can this not be deliberate? It's not like forgetting a baby in a hot car!" Rose protested.

"The parents were ignorant—no, that's too kind. They were stupid. All they wanted was to go out to eat somewhere nice without the baby ruining everything. They chose the wrong solution." Yukie explained.

"Then you get a babysitter! Or order takeout! _Anything_ but sticking it in a locker!"

"Be glad the first one you ever heard die was already dead," her father remarked.

That shocked Rose even worse. "You've heard—and more than one?"

"Things happen in war," he replied. "When people are hiding, when there's no help at hand, no heroes flying in to save the day—when you're out of ammo, outnumbered, people searching for you and there's a baby that won't stay quiet, and it's not a case of you or the baby, it's a case of everyone _and_ the baby—. Be glad this one was dead long ago. Be glad that with your augmentations and your training, you'll never have to be the one to have to make the decision—or the one who has to do it."

He got up, threw his empty coffee cup into a trashcan, and said. "Let's go back to the ryokan. It's been a full day."

* * *

A/N: Yes, there really were coin locker babies.

Thanks to Swordstitcher, Tev, and my guest reviewers. Rose is Adeline's daughter too, according to the New 52, as far as I can tell. She hugs Adeline and calls her 'Mom', anyhow. Yay for a second chapter this week, go me!


	23. Rose, Yukie, Kitaro: A Few Revelations

Back at the ryokan, after a delicious meal, half of which Rose couldn't identify, she retired to her room, where she looked up Abe Hiroshi. She had to admit she could understand why Yukie had had a crush on him back in the day and maybe even still a little now. Why weren't there more Asian leading men in American movies and TV shows? Some of them were just as hot as any Hollywood hunk. Yet—how long ago had 'back in the day' been for Yukie? Abe Hiroshi was now fifty years old. Of course, that didn't mean anything. You could have a crush on somebody who died before you were born, or somebody who never even existed, like a fictional character. But would you also know so much about what fan magazines—teen magazines—said about him? If Yukie had been age appropriate for those magazines when Abe Hiroshi was Japanese girls' most wanted guy, then she was…over forty?

_Huh_.

After that, she looked on Amazon for a book about yokai, and found an e-book translated into English that was something like a field guide. There were even more than Yukie had mentioned, and for a while Rose read up on creatures like the kappa, a water spirit with a taste for both cucumbers and human entrails, but which was so polite that if you bowed to it, it bowed back, spilling the water atop its head that was the source of its strength, so then you could defeat it. There were talking futons, teapots that could turn into badgers, or vice versa, and nearly a hundred others…Rose could feel she was getting sleepy, so she found the section on Yuki-Onna and read that before she turned off the lights.

Yuki-Onna had more powers than were revealed in Kwaidan, it seemed. In addition to the cold-based powers one would expect, like causing blizzards, shooting icicles as missiles, and flash freezing victims by breathing on them, they were also able to either create illusions out of snow and ice or cloud people's minds to lead them astray to their deaths. They were also strong enough to pick up a man much bigger than they were and lift him up over their heads to throw him around, if necessary. When they transformed into a gust of wind, they were invisible and imperceptible, except as a blast of icy cold air. Some accounts said they stole a victim's life essence when they froze them solid.

All of that was only during the colder months, however. When it was warm, they were much weaker—logical enough. Since they were susceptible to heat, in summer they needed all their remaining powers just to stay alive.

But just as the tale of the woodcutter said, Yuki-Onna also had a nurturing and protective side. If moved to compassion, they not only spared people but led them out of danger or even defended them, especially if they were young children. Or guys they fancied. They often came out of the mountains to marry and live among humans—there were no males of their species, as Yuki-Otoko (snow men) were basically yeti and came in both genders, so they had to take human men as lovers or husbands if they wanted to have children. Since Yuki-Onna were tall, stayed youthful, and were always described as having beautiful skin, they had no trouble finding spouses.

Rose wondered Yukie had any Yuki-Onna on her list of things to see and investigate. She'd quite like to see one…

She turned off her computer, then the light, and soon fell asleep.

In the suite next door, Yukie modeled the new ski jacket for her beloved over nothing at all. He showed his appreciation in the logical way, to the delight of both, and then he fell asleep as men were prone to do post-coitus. Yukie was left awake for a time, torn between happiness and apprehension. For so long she had been able to fool herself, if not Slade, into believing she could keep having sex with him and that it still meant nothing more to either of them. Not any longer…

Eventually, she too slept.

In the ryokan's lovely pocket garden, the young man who Saori had captured in the background of the group selfie taken at the shrine watched as the lights went out in the respective rooms. He was the one with russet hair tipped with ivory, whose face was clever and fox-like, and his name was Kitaro.

'_It'll be easy', they said. 'All you have to do is make sure is that the Princess of Snow makes it up Mount Hakkone safe and sound before the vernal equinox. That isn't until late March, it's only January, and she'll be drawn to it inexorably anyhow. It'll be like making water run downhill. You'll just be on hand in case something unforeseen happens, and you'll have your promotion in no time.'_

_Yah, right_. Except that since it was January, the water he was supposed to make flow downhill was _frozen_. And her grandmother, who was supposed to be the one to make that journey, had had over two hundred years to do it and had successfully resisted the call, so it could be done.

Nobody had said she was going to have company, let alone a huge foreigner who looked like he was wearing a yoke under his coat until you realized his shoulders really were that broad. Kitaro had seen bigger, but he'd never fought bigger and he didn't relish the idea of trying to get Lady Snowblood (Yah, he'd taken the name from a movie. It was too appropriate not to.) away from him. Everything about him screamed 'Apex Predator'!

Nor had anybody said there was a girl along as well, one so pretty she knocked Kitaro sideways. She was obviously the big foreigner's daughter, but the question was, was she Lady Snowblood's as well? How long had the Lady been gone from Japan? The girl—Rose?—was nearly an adult. Lady Snowblood's branch of the extended family did tend to reach fertility early, the result of having to breed with humans, but she was probably a bit young to be having a baby of her own yet, let alone be the mother of a girl that age. So Rose wasn't of the Blood. Too bad.

And then there was the green-skinned kid who could shapeshift. What was he? It was said that foxes had seven shifter forms, badgers had eight shifter forms, and weasels had nine shifter forms. Thus far he'd seen the kid be a mouse, a human, a gull, and a parakeet. How many more did he have? Now Greenie was lost in Tokyo and huddled up with other parakeets for warmth, picking up a bird mite infestation while he was there. He wasn't Kitaro's problem, though, which was good, as Lady Snowblood's consort and adoptive daughter were likely to be more than enough trouble.

The problem was, the extended family's information network was puny compared to what was possible these days. '_We don't want to lose our identity_,' was their response when he and some of the other younglings suggested they learn how to use phones and computers. That might have been enough to quiet him when he was three hundred, but he was three hundred and fifty years old now, and that excuse wouldn't fly anymore. Why shouldn't yokai become a little more like humans? Humans were becoming more and more like yokai all the time, with the powers they were developing these days.

His job would sure be easier if he knew where Lady Snowblood and her companions were planning to go and how long they were planning to stay.

Then it struck him. All he needed to do was strike up an acquaintance with Rose. He knew she was friendly—he'd seen her with the two local girls. She was also nice, as she had bought the poorer one a prayer placard, and intelligent, too—how many foreigners spoke such perfect Japanese? She already knew people with unusual characteristics, so she wouldn't freak out if she met somebody else with a few quirks.

But how to go about meeting her? Sure, he was what girls considered cute, in his human form or his fox form, but that wasn't necessarily enough and these days if you approached a human as a fox, they didn't think, 'Oh, it's a kitsune', they thought, 'RABIES!' Then you had all sorts of problems…

The green-skinned kid! He was the answer. Kitaro could track him down, talk to him, 'help' him find his friends, and claim an introduction that way. Not tonight, though. He'd wait a day or two until the kid was really missed and really desperate.

Smiling, Kitaro took on his fox form, which had particularly handsome russet fur and four long, luxurious tails. Not for much longer, though. Once Lady Snowblood got to Mount Hakkone, he'd have a fifth.

The yokai leapt up to the inn's roof, then over to the next building, and scouted his way over the Tokyo rooftops, intent on the trail of 'Greenie'. Best to keep an eye on where he was, make sure he wasn't eaten by anything or anyone…

* * *

A/N: So have you put the pieces together? I was going to do this more subtly, spin out the mystery of what or who Kitaro is longer, and what Yukie actually is, but you know what? I seem to be writing this for three people, Tevinter of our Discontent, SwordStitcher, and myself, so fuck it. I'm doing the reveal.


	24. Tim: An Ethical Dilemma

Tim looked at his phone. He had to call Rose back, it was the responsible thing to do, but he wasn't relishing the task. One way and another, Slade Wilson had caused the Titans a lot of pain, first through his son Grant, who died in his arms fighting the Titans, not because they'd killed him, but because he'd taken a toxic dose of serum to enhance his physical abilities. Then the man himself tried to destroy them in retaliation for Grant's death. Finally, there was Joseph, who joined the team and was one of them for years before he mentally imploded. They had liked Joseph. He was a good team member and a good friend.

So when Rose had come along, nobody was really keen on adding another Wilson to the line-up. They'd been burnt enough already. But Rose herself had done nothing wrong, and she needed their help, so Robin spoke up for her, because it was the right thing to do.

Nobody could fault Rose in terms of her skills—anybody who survived Deathstroke's training went on to be a first-rate fighter—but his idea of training somebody to their utter limits meant training them to the breaking point. Rose came in damaged—needy, depressed, and desperate. Those were not attractive qualities, and that meant she really hadn't made any friends on the team. Not even Robin himself.

Lately she'd taken to throwing herself half-heartedly at her male teammates, maybe because she wanted to be loved, or maybe because she wanted to form a bond through sex that she couldn't through friendship. As yet, nobody had taken her up on it, partly because she hadn't even turned sixteen until very recently, partly because she was so needy that it raised red flags, and finally because nobody wanted to find out what Deathstroke would do to a guy who messed with his little girl when he found out about it.

However, whether within the team or outside of it, sooner or later somebody who didn't know or didn't care was going to take her up on it, and Tim just didn't see that going well for anybody. Least of all Rose herself.

Now she had run off to Tokyo, of all places, without warning or any explanation, not even a note. Tim's hunch was that it had something to do with Yukime Kuwano, Rose's father's girlfriend. He'd done some background checking on the woman after Rose had told him she was the same one who worked for Freeze. He hadn't found out anything that bad, other than that she was in a relationship with Slade Wilson. The entire Gotham underworld knew who visited her regularly, and Batman knew nothing about it at all.

Yukie had US citizenship through her father, who had been born in the States while his family was held in the Crystal City, Texas internment camp, one of many where Japanese-American citizens were wrongfully confined during World War Two. Since that experience soured them on America, the Kuwano family relocated back to Japan, but his citizenship was still valid, and therefore, so was hers.

Her credit report was impeccable, she had never had a moving violation or a parking ticket, and she had never been tried or convicted of a crime. However, she had been arrested several times for aggravated assault and once for manslaughter, but the charges were dropped each time because she was acting in self-defense. Her hobby was sumi-e, traditional Japanese ink-wash painting, and she belonged to a national society of sumi-e artists. Several of her works were on their website, energetic studies of nature and landscapes—unless it was a different Yukime Kuwano, which was quite possible. There was one who was a concert pianist and another who sold insurance, and that was only in the United States.

Other than that, she had no internet presence—no social media accounts, or none under her own name, which was unusual these days.

All right, it was now 3AM in Tokyo. If he was going to make the call, it was time. He picked up the phone.

"Uh—wha? Izz sumfin' wrong?" Rose asked when she picked up.

"You could say so," he replied. "One of my teammates flew to Tokyo on her own without warning and now she's avoiding my calls. What's going on? _Why _are you in Tokyo? Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"Oh. Robin. Robin," he heard her yawn, and then she mumbled, muzzily, "No, I'm na—in trouble. I almost was but…I'm on vacation. It'z really Yukie's vacation, but she's sharin' it. I had such a wunnerful," another yawn, "day. Yukie and I went shopping in the mornin'—and then we had ramen for lunch but it was nothin' like supermarket ramen, it was really good—and my dad even laughed and joked around, not even like an 'I'm about to hurt you a lot' laugh, but for _real_—then we went to these haunted shrines but the coin-lockers made me want to cry an' tomorrow we're going to the Ecko-Tokyo—no, the_ Edo_-Tokyo Museum and sight-seein' an'—."

"Rose? Are you trying to tell me that you're in Tokyo with your father and his girlfriend—_by choice_? What the hell?"

"Uh—Damn. I'm not dreaming this?" She yawned again.

"No, you're not," he told her. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Seeing Tokyo," she replied, sounding more awake. "Do you know what time it is here?"

"Yes, that's why I chose to call now, so you wouldn't be busy. Don't evade the question. You're on vacation with your father, the same guy who tried to kill you. What makes that a good idea?"

"You were a lot more sympathetic when we talked about this before Christmas," she complained. "Anyhow, he only tried to kill me so you guys would take me in. He thought I'd be better off with you than with him."

"I was sympathetic because it's important for you to make peace with your past and move on, not go on vacation with it. Is that what he told you to get you to go along with them to Japan?"

"If he really wanted to kill me, I'd be dead," she pointed out. "Look, the whole vacation thing—I didn't plan this and Dad didn't ask me to come along, either. It just happened once I got here."

"Then how did it just happen? Hopping a flight to Japan isn't like getting on the wrong bus by mistake," he pointed out.

"Look, I wanted to meet Yukie, so I flew to Tokyo. If Batman suddenly told you there was somebody in his life and had been for two years, only you weren't going to get to meet her for months, what would _you_ do? Especially if you knew she was good for him? _You_ were the one who pointed that out to me." Rose yawned again. "You'd be more curious than a box full of kittens, and you know it."

There was something different about how she spoke and how she sounded. Rose sounded…confident. Assertive as opposed to defiant. Even…happy?

"Yes, I'd be curious," he admitted. Both Batman and Bruce Wayne had women throwing themselves at him all the time, and while he'd had relationships with at least half a dozen, not counting Catwoman or Talia Al Ghul, both of whom had an off-and-on thing going with the Dark Knight, they never lasted very long. His adoptive father had_ issues_.

As if she was reading his mind, Rose then went on to say, "And you know how rare it is for any costumed adventurer to have a relationship that lasts more than maybe six months, whether it's with somebody else in the life or a civilian. Yukie and my father have been together _two years_. That's like being married for ten in the regular world! I watched them together today, well, it's yesterday now, technically, and I listened when they told me how they met, and…they're happy."

"It could all be an act to get you to return to training and take up his line of work," Tim cautioned her.

"I know," Rose said, and her tone of voice said she was serious. "But yesterday I had fun, and today seems like it'll be okay too. Maybe it'll all turn out to be fake after all, but…I think spending this time with them is worth the risk. I promise if he calls on me to kill anybody, I'll get the hell out of there. It won't be for that long, anyway."

"How long?" he asked.

"Just while they're in Tokyo. Not more than three….weeks." she said reluctantly. "Maybe sooner."

"Three. Weeks." he repeated.

"I know, I know, but…could you cover for me? Please?" Rose asked.

"For three weeks? What am I supposed to tell them? You know that if anybody else finds out you're on vacation with Deathstroke, they'll kick you off the team—and this time there won't be anything I can do to stop them."

"You could say…there was a last minute opening in this exchange program I applied to months ago, and I'm…attending Tokyo University Boot Camp," Rose offered.

"Tokyo University Boot Camp?" he asked. "What is that?"

"It's a special high school program to get kids ready to pass the entry exam," she told him. "Intensive study, and all that."

"That's so…unlikely it sounds real. All right," he weakened. "I'm already covering for Gar, what's one more?"

"Thanks!—why are you covering for Beast Boy too?" Rose asked.

"Oh, you know. He said there was this girl he just had to follow."

"Ugh. You know he'll turn up in a couple of days with this story about hooking up with her _and _her best friend, and it'll all be a lie," Rose groaned. "One of these days, some girl is going to relocate his testicles for him, and it might even be me. Anyway, thanks, Robin. You're the best!"

"You're welcome. I hope you have a good time. Just be careful over there, and if you have to, remember you can yell for help. We're teammates."

"_You _are," she said, "The rest just put up with me. It's okay, though. Bye!"

She hung up at her end.

Tim frowned in thought. Funny, he had never liked Rose as much as he did then.

It seemed as though a darkness was seeping into all the heroes. It was getting hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Superman had killed—actually _**killed**_—that guy from his home planet, Zod. Green Arrow was going around Starling City shooting and killing people, and while all of them might have been working for the bad guys, that didn't necessarily mean they all deserved to die. Batman wasn't killing anyone, and never would, but the way he was taking criminals down these days, snapping bones and knocking out teeth, was so violent it verged on torture…

Now it seemed as though it was getting hard to tell the bad guys from the good guys, when the most notorious assassin in the world was in a stable long-term relationship and acting like a good father.

'Acting' was the operative word, of course.

Time would tell whether anything was actually different.

* * *

A/N: Okay, here's a pop quiz. Let's suppose you're an ethical young hero, and one day you go back to your room and find one of your teammates waiting for you in your bed, naked. You didn't expect to find her there, and you don't want her there.

Do you:

A. Freak out and yell at her to get out from the doorway.

B. Realize this is a cry for help and tell her so sympathetically and tactfully.

C. Handcuff her to your bed as she is and leave, leaving the door open for your other teammates to wander by and get an eyeful.

D. No, you're not going to take advantage of her. You're an ethical young man and anyway, you don't want her.

Rose actually does strip down and slide into Robin's bed when she thinks they're going to cut her from the team. I can see her doing that-the team is all she has at that point, but I don't see Robin doing what the writer had him do, which was C. Anyway, I wanted to address that.

My thanks to my reviewers: Code Aster-I hope you keep on enjoying the story. I sure enjoy writing it! Tev, and Swordstitcher, my besties. Luv ya!


	25. Yukie: When It Changed

Yukie drifted back into the waking world next to Slade's very warm and solid form. This was the third morning in a row…and the sick, suffocating, dirty-fishbowl feeling was nowhere on her emotional horizon. Well, she had already passed that milestone with him over Christmas at the ski resort, and everything had been all right. The memory made her smile for several reasons.

One was that going to the mountains in winter always made her feel vibrantly alive, another was that she had enjoyed not just being with Slade, but being somewhere new with him. Among those reasons was that she realized he must have a house in the Lake Tahoe area he hadn't told her about. He thought he was being secretive, no doubt, but when he picked her up at the airport he was freshly showered, and while he had the GPS in the rental car programmed to take them to their hotel, he wasn't relying on it. He also knew the area very well for a supposedly occasional visitor. Even he sometimes wasn't as clever as he thought he was.

Who was she to smile at that? She wasn't as clever as she thought she was, either. No one was. She burrowed down into the futon, the better to enjoy the warmth. He snorted a little and half-turned, still asleep. What was this about, then, if it was about more than sex? She had known she would never live with him or have a family with him. He would never expect her to do his laundry or scrub a toilet and in turn she would never demand he hold her purse while she shopped or take out the trash.

So now he said he was serious, that it had been so for him since their third date. What did that even mean? She remembered that date very well. One moment she was finishing her sorbet, the next he roared, "Get down," and shoved her out of her chair to the floor.

Then he landed on top of her, so heavily as to leave bruises, and immediately upon that there came the explosion. His body jerked, and when he dropped his shoulder to turn and look at the room, she saw his suit was in shreds—his _back _was in shreds—and the restaurant was ablaze, a tunnel of burning wreckage strewn with bodies, shards of plate, and scraps of food. He winced, reached around and wrenched free a piece of metal which was sticking rather horribly out of the region of his kidneys, tossing it away.

They had been sitting at the front window, so the mortar round went over their heads and exploded at the back of the room. He had only survived because he saw what was coming and was tougher than boot leather, and she had only survived because he protected her with his body.

'_Stay down'_ he mouthed at her, and she nodded. She could hear the tramp of running feet, several men by the sound of it, and wearing boots, not shoes or sneakers as Gotham dwellers usually wore, even in winter—a squad, then. After someone in particular—after him?

Yes. As they entered the hovel which had been one of Gotham's finest dining locations for New American cuisine, one ordered, "Spread out. Find Wilson. We've got to take his head back if we're going to get paid. And hurry—this is Gotham City. We don't want to tangle with the Bat."

His head? They were assuming he was dead. Through the smoke which swirled around the squad, she could see them—six men in heavy parkas, faces covered by ski masks, armed with rifles. No Rogue Gallery insignia, not well dressed as Mob thugs would be—not locals, then. Maybe they had on Kevlar under those parkas, or some other body armor. They were not wearing helmets, only their hats or hoods. _Go for the head and the neck, then_. A knife from the carving station was barely within her reach, its blade greasy from the prime rib. She teased it toward her with her finger tips until she could grasp the handle.

She glanced at Slade, seeing that he had already pulled his weapon. When he carried concealed, it was truly concealed; his custom tailored suits hid several surprises among their meticulous stitches. He gave her a glance in return that judged whether she was apt to do anything stupid, and nodded.

He fired—once, twice, as he leapt across the room, landing in a roll which brought him back on his feet in a crouch. She flipped a tablecloth over the head of the man nearest her, and stabbed him in the chest. The blade went in without much resistance—she could feel it grate against a rib—and came back out in a gush of blood and goose down, which looked like snowflakes in the wind that howled through the restaurant. The man's shout turned to a gurgle as he died.

While all that was going on, the other men raised their weapons and fired in the direction Slade's shots had come from. One mowed down his own team member as he did, but Yukie was moving, and at her level of enhancement, dodging the bullets was possible, but not easy. She felt her stockings tear and run as she tore from the disintegrating cover of one upended table to the corridor leading to the restrooms, where she flung herself against the wall. Across the room, she saw Slade surge up from behind the splintered bar, the snarl of a tiger on his face. He seized a man around the neck, and snap! The man went down, loose and floppy as a rag doll.

"Abort, abort!" the leader cried out, but again, Slade fired—she could tell the sound of a handgun from the sound of a rifle—but one of them poked his head around the corridor where she hid. She slashed out in a perfect move from the 'Swan' form of Jian Wu, and cut his throat. How many were left? One down when Slade shot him, another who she killed, one taken out by friendly fire, the one whose neck her lover snapped, this one whose throat she cut—that left one.

"Wilson!" It was the leader's voice. "Look—it was nothing personal. Only a job, you understand. I'm putting my weapon down, see? I surrender—."

"The more fool you," rasped Slade Wilson, "This is personal now." She heard one last shot. "Yukie?" he called out.

"Here!" she replied, stepping over the body into what remained of the main room. In the distance, she heard sirens, and nearby there was shouting. But right there, in the ruins of the restaurant—she smelled gas. The kitchen—the gas lines were ruptured! The building was already on fire. "The gas main is ruptured, we have to get out before it blows!"

"I hear you," He crossed the distance between them, took the knife from her hand, and tossed it back in the direction of the kitchen. "Run!"

They ran at a pace which devoured blocks in less than a minute and got perhaps a quarter of a mile away before the ground shook and a fireball turned night to day for a moment. The heat and sound washed over them. Only then did they slow to a walk amid the worn brownstones which made up the neighborhood.

"You all right?" he asked her.

"Yes," she answered. "But you? Your back, you're still bleeding—." Wet blood still streaked it, amid the tatters of jacket and shirt.

"There's some glass still stuck in my shoulders, that's all. Keeps slicing it open as I move. Are you cold? I'd offer you my jacket, but I doubt it would do much to help."

"Between the fighting and the running, I'm quite warm," she told him. "However, these shoes will never be wearable again." Their delicate silver-grey satin was bloodstained and the soles, never meant for sprinting had worn thin. Their coats were back in the inferno that was the block where the restaurant had once stood, but her purse had a wrist strap, so she hadn't lost that.

All in all, it could have been much worse. She observed, "I have always wondered if I could kill someone if it came to it, and now I know the answer. I can."

"That was your first time?" Slade cocked an eyebrow at her. "How are you taking it?"

"Rather like when I lost my virginity," she gave him a smile. "For something I thought so much about for years, and imbued with such significance, it was over almost before I knew it had happened, and left me wondering what the fuss was about. I was fifteen and so was Ryuuji. He lived down the street from us."

Deathstroke chuckled. "Better that than you traumatized and in tears, vowing you'd rather do anything than go through that again."

"Are we speaking of sex or killing now?" she returned.

"Both. Either. Take it however you please," he said, glancing up and down the street. "I'd prefer not to go back to the hotel straight off. The question is, where are you going?"

"Am I not to go with you?" she asked.

"That's…your choice to make. You would be safer if you went back to Freeze's place. They were out to kill me. You wouldn't have been in danger if you weren't with me."

She shrugged that off. "You're more dangerous. Besides, we are near Chinatown, where my drummer and his grandmother live. I gave them twice what I promised when I won, and Granny Chen will help and never tell anyone afterward."

Granny Chen was, in fact, delighted to see her, and her ancient eyes sparkled when she saw Slade, "Oh, _good_. I knew this would happen when I saw you dueling," she told Yukie in Mandarin. "He's clearly got an excess of yang, which balances out your excess of yin. A natural match. Perfect balance. What shoulders he has on him! Oooh, is _all_ of him oversized?"

"Ah—Granny—He speaks Mandarin as well as I do," Yukie hastily told her. "And he is injured and needs new clothes. Can we come in?"

"Of course, of course!" The elderly woman was utterly unfazed by the fact that Slade knew exactly what she had said about him. "I'll put the kettle on and find my medicine box. Tommy!" She called to the back of her house. "We have company! You're on the sofa tonight. Go change the sheets on your bed!" To Yukie she said, "He's on the sofa half the time anyway now, since he bought that video game thing. You're not putting him out."

Before long, Slade was face down on Tommy's bed while she picked shreds of glass out of his shoulders, dropping them one by one into a bowl. "I think that's all of them," she said, blotting up blood with a wad of paper towels, prodding at the cuts to feel for any more fragments. "Do you feel anything I don't?"

"No," Slade replied. He had propped himself up on one elbow, the better to crane his head and watch her. The expression on his face was…puzzled, as though he were adding up a long column of numbers in his head.

"Good. Then all that's left is disinfectant and bandages," She soaked more paper towels in peroxide, applying it generously. The blood foamed up pinkly, fizzing like champagne.

"You don't need to be so careful. I don't get infections and in a hour, cuts that shallow will be healed over," he told her.

"Better safe than swollen and full of pus," she responded. "Do you think you'll be visiting Gotham again before March 15th?"

"I mean to. I mean to visit as often as I can," he said. "Why? What's so special about March 15th?"

"There's an exhibit on the Iliad and the Trojan War at the Gotham Museum of History starting on January 15th. You mentioned Achilles over dinner, so I thought the show might interest you. If you'd like to see it, I'll wait until I go with you." Once his skin was clean and dry, she applied the bandages and finished up her ministrations with a kiss to the back of his neck before she swung a leg over to sit on the bed next to him. "Anyhow, I'll leave you to rest and recover. Granny Chen will have something for you to wear once the stores open in the morning."

"You're not leaving me alone here with her?" he asked, turning towards her and gathering her into his arms. "Who's going to fend her off if she decides to check my proportions for herself?"

"But you won't sleep if I'm here, and you were injured." Although not _that_ injured, it seemed…

"As I said, in an hour the cuts will be healed over. _I'm_ recovered _now_." And so he was.

Over the next two years, she had seen Slade Wilson in dark moods when he hardly spoke a word. She had been there when he needed to use sex like a drug to drive something from his mind. She had seen him enraged and she had seen him on the hunt. There were nights when he groaned and growled incomprehensibly in his sleep, when he thrashed in the throes of dreams. Once he had even shoved her out of bed while in the grip of some violent nightmare, not knowing who she was.

He had at times killed men with a snarling grin on his face, and at other times with an expression of clinical detachment, and sometimes with no expression at all; she had witnessed it. Not because he brought her along when he worked, but because from time to time, someone had found him as they did the night of that third date. And he had visited quite often.

He always treated her well. Other than the time he shoved her out of bed or out of the way of a bullet or blade, he never hit her, even when he was at his darkest or most furious, and he was a man to whom violence came so, so easily. Sparring practice did not count, obviously. He never belittled her by talking down to her or treating her as helpless. Nor did he treat her like a prostitute, demand or force her to do anything she found painful or degrading in bed.

That was simple consideration, however. No more and no less than someone should expect in any relationship, though to her it was still a little astonishing.

Now looking at their relationship from his point of view, what was there between them? Leaving all self-deprecation aside—there was no point in thinking she was not beautiful enough, not shapely enough, not famous or powerful enough—he had made it clear those things were not what he wanted.

Who else did he have in his life, other than his daughter? Yukie knew there he had associates—the people who made his armor and equipment, the…she could not think of the word in English—the _motojime_, the go-between who arranged assignments for him, his various contacts—but who among them would go out for a drink with him simply as a friend?

Why had she not asked herself these questions before?

What was she going to do?

The short term answer to that was simple: Get up, wash, get dressed, have breakfast, and go to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. The long term answer—She could still change her mind. Until she reached Mount Hakkoda, she could still change her mind.

She had to hold on to that.

A/N: Thank you to Swordstitcher, Bat-teen28 and Tev for reviewing, and thank you to those who simply read and follow.


	26. Rose: History

Early on an icy weekday in January, with a razor-like wind outside doing its best to shear through the heavy coats on passers-by, the Edo-Tokyo Museum was practically deserted. As far as Rose could tell, they were the only visitors. The museum itself was a big white building resembling a traditional warehouse, only built with modern materials and construction methods. If it was not as big as a football stadium, it was not that much smaller, to Rose's eye. The top floors were exhibition space, and the three of them ascended via escalator.

The escalator was shielded from the worst of the wind, but it still shrieked and whistled through the tube and up, making Rose's ears ache with cold, even with the hood of her new coat pulled up. Her father looked impassive, of course, because he was far too macho to let mere frostbite bother him, but Yukie looked as though the cold not only didn't bother her, it delighted her.

However, seeing Rose's discomfort, her brow creased with concern. "Unless the wind dies down and the sky clears, this may not be the best day for sight-seeing. Slade, I arranged a temporary membership for you at a gym with facilities for meta clients." When you could bench press over a ton, as Slade Wilson could, you needed special facilities for working out. Yukie continued, "It would not be difficult to add Rose to it—or she and I could visit my old dojo. Which would you prefer, Rose?"

Work out with her father there to point out how inadequate her progress had been since they parted ways, or hang out with Yukie? No question there. "Oh, I'll go with you," Rose immediately chose.

They reached the top and went into a blessedly wind-proof and warm foyer, where her father stepped up and paid for the tickets and they checked their coats in. After politely turning down the volunteer guide, Yukie led them over a replica bridge into the past, faithful in every detail.

"Why don't we split up and look at what interests us the most?" she suggested. "Everything is labeled in several languages, and the English translations are very accurate, or so I understand. This is the Edo half. Shall we phone each other in an hour or so and then move on to the Tokyo part?"

"Okay," Rose agreed.

Most of the exhibits were models built to various scales showing the city of Tokyo as it was before it was called Tokyo, from life-size like the replica Kabuki theatre, to the model-train size cityscape. This was the world of the Kurosawa movies she'd seen, with all the little figures of townspeople in kimonos.

It was wonderful. There were the streets, thronging with life-here were women shopping in the market, and a fishmonger with two baskets of shining silver fish hanging from the yoke on his shoulders. There was a bridal procession taking the newly-wedded lady to her new home in a palanquin hung with silk, so only her sleeves showed. On that street was a funeral procession. Would the two processions cross paths, life beginning and life ended?

Then there were the larger town houses. Going from one to the other along a typical street, she saw all sorts of scenes—a craftsman in his work-shop, a silk merchant measuring out goods—a family scene where a new mother sat up in bed, watching the midwife wash her newborn, while her older children and her husband looked on.

That scene made Rose pause. What if Yukie and her father had a baby together? That question awoke a turbulent storm of reaction in her, both positive and negative, from 'Wow, I'd be a big sister!' to 'Please God, _don't_ let my father _ever _breed again, let alone _raise_ another kid!' and 'But maybe it would be okay!' and even all the way to 'Then I wouldn't be the baby anymore!'

She tried to rein in her thoughts. Genetically speaking, only Joey had wound up with a bad mutation, one he couldn't control. She and Grant were fine. Grant, who she remembered as both impatient and kind of lazy, had taken an unstable serum that broke down and turned toxic—poor judgment on his part, yes, but not due to bad genes.

As far as being a father instead of just fathering kids… Well, Dad had raised Grant on his own after their mother had taken Joseph and run while still carrying Rose. He pushed his only remaining (as he thought) son hard, making him work hard, harder still, pushing him to be better, to be the best. Jump higher. Strike harder. Aim better. Rose knew how it went; she'd been through it herself.

But he'd left Joey and Rose to his wife to train. Joseph wasn't a natural fighter—his talent was for music. Slade Wilson had respected that. He hadn't forced Joey to become something he wasn't. He simply wasn't there much for his younger son at all. The problem was, Joseph had wound up with powers as well as talent, and maybe if he'd had more training, he'd have had the mental discipline to keep his mind separate from the people he possessed.

So Grant had been raised too much by their father, and Joey maybe not enough. When it came to Rose herself—her mother raised her, but first losing Grant and then Joey left her an empty shell. There was nothing left but a burning hatred for the man responsible—her former husband. He had pushed Grant until he took the unstable serum, had killed Joseph with his own hands.

Adeline Kane Wilson hadn't been there for her daughter after that. Not really. The downward spiral had begun.

_Let's face it. It was losing Joey. He was always her favorite. When it came to it, she took Joey and left Grant behind. She only took me because she had no choice, because I wasn't born yet. _

_If it was too dangerous for her and Joey to stay with Dad, then it was too dangerous for Grant too._

_If it was too dangerous for her to stay with Dad, then it was too dangerous for me._

_But she died and left me behind. If she really died, that is_.

_If she abandoned a child once—and she did—then she could do it again_.

_She said Dad destroyed her family, but I was still alive. Didn't I count?_

So at the age of thirteen, following her mother's death, Rose was left in the care of a father she hadn't met until she was six and who hadn't been there more than half the time even _before_ the divorce. It was hard to separate how she really felt about her father from what her mother had said about him over the years, and her mother had not been shy about sharing her feelings.

_Yet Dad **never** said **one negative word** about her…_

_It wasn't the training that was so bad. Okay, yes it was, but it was the kind of bad I could handle, and I was getting better. I was, I **am**, a good fighter. Better than Grant. I have the talent and the discipline he didn't have. Okay, so there was no way I could ever pack on muscle like a guy, I'd never have that powerful an upper body. He modified the training to play to my strengths. _

_Then why did he do it? Why did he dose me with the serum? _

-Waking up with a puncture mark in her arm and a burning feeling in her blood, and never feeling quite safe or sane ever again. Now she could bench-press fifteen hundred pounds and see what her opponent was going to do ten seconds before they did it.-

_Even if he told me the truth, even if I knew what the truth was when I heard it…_

What made him the way he was?

What did she really know about her father? Nothing about where he grew up or went to school, nothing about his family… He'd once said he was born the day he joined the Army, but he didn't start living until he met her mother. That was during one of the rare times they were getting along.

She realized she'd been staring at the scene with the little family for a very long time and shook her head. There was no point in thinking about it now. She was in a museum and she was going to make the most of it. Looking at the nearest signage, she started reading.

TBC...

* * *

A/N: Yes, it's too short, but I haven't posted a thing for weeks and I want you to know I'm still here and still writing. My thanks to Bat-Teen28, Swordstitcher, and first time reviewer Luna Lightblade!


	27. Rose: More History

After wandering through the museum for some time almost at random, reading the displays as she went, Rose had learned a lot.

First and foremost was that Edo was one of the names by which Tokyo was known before it was named Tokyo. It was also the name of the era when the Tokugawa clan had reigned as Shogun, from 1603 to 1868. During that time, the Tokugawa had made it a matter of national policy to have as little to do with the outside world as possible. Any and all foreign trade had to be conducted on the islands of Nagasaki and Decima, all ships were deliberately built to be too flimsy for long ocean voyages, and those who left Japan, except on state approved missions, were not allowed to return, ever.

The result was over two hundred and fifty years of peace, during which the arts and culture flourished, but scientific discovery and technological development froze as if trapped in amber. When Japan eventually rejoined the world in progress, it was as if the entire country had gone to sleep in Shakespeare's day and not woken up until the Victorian Era was well underway. The culture shock was tremendous.

What she hadn't yet learned was why it had been thought necessary to cut the whole country off in the first place. Any progress toward solving that mystery was halted when she turned a corner and discovered the weapons display. The swordsmiths of Japan had produced some fine, _fine_ steel, and to her, looking at the naginata, katana, and wakizashi was just as appealing as wandering through the jewelry cases in a Tiffany's store.

Naturally, Slade Wilson was also admiring the blades. He nodded to his daughter as she came up beside him. "Hey, Dad," she responded. "Can I—Oooh, that's a _gorgeous_ blade!" Although it was not mounted in a hilt at the moment, it was clearly meant for a two-handed sword, something that had to be carried on the back due to its length.

"Yes," he agreed. "A nodachi by Masamune. The mokugame-gane on it is superb. That's a blade that could be bent in half, pommel to point, and spring back without breaking or kinking."

"'Mokugame-gane?'" she asked. It wasn't a phrase she knew.

"The wood-grain effect on the flat. It's produced by heating the steel, folding it, and hammering it out, over and over again. That blade has over sixty-five hundred layers of metal to it."

"It reminds me of a Lamborghini," Rose said, looking at the way the metal curved. "You can tell just by looking how fast it'll go and how well it will handle."

"And how expensive it will be," he added. "That blade wasn't for the ordinary samurai getting by on four measures of rice a year. That was for a daimyo or a prince of the blood. Are you enjoying yourself?"

"I am. It's not fun like, say, Disneyland Tokyo or anything, but it's interesting. You know, I don't think I ever realized how…biased our history books are in school. I mean, we study world history, but they make it sound like everything that happened up until right now was on purpose just to bring about democracy and the American Way—like we're the point of it all. But we're not. All this was just as real as the Civil War and the Louisiana Purchase and everything else. I don't think I expressed that very well," she finished with a frown.

"Oh, I don't think you did badly. What you mean is, you're learning something."

"Yeah. I am! Uh—Dad?"

"I sense a prying question coming on," he remarked.

"Kind of—. Do you think—I mean, are you and Yukie planning—not right away, of course, but somewhere down the line—." Better to ask than to wonder about it, right? Yet she couldn't find just the right words.

"Just spit it out," he advised her, eyeing her curiously.

"Are you and Yukie going to have a baby together someday, do you think?"

His expression turned to rough-hewn granite. "You cannot know how glad I am you chose to ask me that rather than her."

"Why?" she asked, surprised. "I know it's not really my business, but—."

"Yukie is infertile," he told her. "It's part of her medical condition, like the hypohydrosis."

"Oh," she said in a very small voice. Like Yukie not being able to be a martial artist, not being able to be a mother was unfair, a waste of talent. Then the thought occurred to her. "Then does that mean she tried to have a baby once?"

"When she was married," Her father said, keeping his voice low in volume. "It didn't last long, just long enough to leave her miserable and insecure. The plus side of it is, I shine in comparison to her ex in every way. Unfortunately, she's also wary of marrying again."

Rose could not contain a gasp of excitement. "You mean you really want—!"

He made an angry gesture for her to shut up. Someone was coming, and given how empty the museum was on that bitterly cold day, it had to be Yukie, and it was.

"Ah, here you both are," she said, smiling at them. "Our common ground—swords. But I wanted to show you the woodcut prints—they're this way."

"Okay—I had a question, though." Her father shot her a fuming look. "About the history of Japan. Why shut out the world like that in the first place?" Rose asked Yukie. "And why did science and innovation just stop dead?"

"It stems from the Borgias and their greed," Yukie replied. "Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, divided up that part of the world which had not yet been baptized Christian between the Spanish and the Portuguese. Spain got the New World, Portugal received Africa and Asia, both with full license to rob, rape, plunder, enslave, murder and exploit everything and everyone as long as they made a token effort to convert the heathens to Christianity—and kept the gold flowing into Rome."

"Rodrigo Borgia—I remember him from _Assassin's Creed_!" Rose exclaimed. "He was horrible, him _and _all his kids."

"_Assassin's Creed_?" her father asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's this video game series. A really good one—well, the Ezio trilogy was really good. They're set in the Renaissance, and you play the assassin Ezio Auditore—."

Her father's cynical and eloquent expression said, without words, _'I tried to teach you how to do that for real, and you prefer video games._'

"—uh, but the techniques they show aren't realistic, though. Still, there's all kinds of history in it, so you learn a lot while you play. Anyway," Rose changed the subject. "I guess the Japanese didn't want to be converted, right?"

"Some did," Yukie replied. "The teachings of Christ are quite compatible with the precepts of Buddhism—Show mercy and compassion toward others, take care of those less fortunate, and so forth—. If that was all the Portuguese spread, there would have been no difficulty.

"However, the Catholicism in which those words were packaged called for people to be obedient to the Church before the temporal authorities, which was socially disruptive, and in addition to spreading discord, they also spread smallpox, body odor, guns, syphilis, and an insufferable air of superiority. We already had an insufferable air of superiority of our own, and didn't need to import any more."

Yukie smiled wryly at them, and Slade Wilson snorted with amusement.

She went on as they walked past several displays and turned a corner. "Were we a less sophisticated society, like the natives of North America or most of the tribes of Africa, I suppose what happened to them would have happened to us as well—dispossessed of our lands, or sold into slavery, but we were more than equal to the Portuguese. We drove them out. The Tokugawa subsequently decided foreign ideas were as much a disease as syphilis or smallpox, and all manner of innovations from the outside world were looked at as suspect.

"Only the Chinese and the Dutch were permitted to engage in trade, and only because the Dutch persuaded the Shogun that they could conduct business without trying to convert anyone. And so it was until 1853, when Admiral Perry sailed American warships into Uraga Harbor with a letter from President Millard Fillmore, and threatened to turn cannons on the town if America's demands were not met."

"Why?" Rose asked. "I mean, Japan wasn't doing anything to America, not when you couldn't even go to sea."

"The ostensible reason was that Japan refused to let American whaling vessels dock to make repairs and resupply. The real reason was the demand of 'Free Trade'. America wanted to export goods to the Japanese market.

"So two hundred and fifty years of isolation ended. It should have ended before then. We should not have let the Tokugawa immure us in time as they did. We had shrunk down into a quaint little pocket of feudalism while Europe and America had steamships, locomotives, and telegraphs.

"But the way in which it happened—forced upon us by outsiders who dictated extremely unequal terms in their treaties—was humiliating. Learning how small and backward we were raised a great deal of ire and fired a determination to catch up and get even, which festered and simmered until it boiled over some eighty-eight years later, in the form of the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan's involvement in World War Two. I left a great deal of history out, of course, but that is the essence of it. As I see it, anyhow. Here we are, at the woodblock prints." Yukie pointed to the wall, which was hung with a wide assortment of framed prints.

"See these two here? They're illustrations of the same ghost story, the tale of Okiku. She was a maid in a great household, which had among its treasures a set of ten porcelain plates, valuable and irreplaceable. In some versions, she breaks one, in others, a man she spurned breaks it or hides it and blames it on her. In desperation and shame, she drowns herself in the household well—or he murders her and throws her down it. However it happened, she did not stay quiet. Every night, she counted the plates, in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the house, from one to nine, and broke into sobs and wails when she couldn't reach ten. The man involved went mad and nobody could live there because there was no sleep to be had.

"Eventually a particularly astute exorcist yelled 'Ten' at the right moment, and after that, Okiku was heard no more. There she is, coming out of her well, as Yoshitoshi chose to portray her and as Hokusai imagined her."

"A ghost coming out of a well… That sounds familiar." Rose said, looking at the two pictures. The one by Yoshitoshi showed a pretty, neatly dressed specter- girl weeping into her sleeves, but the one by Hokusai was a horror—a long segmented worm with a woman's head on it slithered up from a half-rotted well mouth, her long black hair streaming along her sides—.

"The Ring!" she remembered. "That was based on a Japanese movie, wasn't it? There's a ghost that comes out of the well and then out of the TV!"

"Yes, exactly. It was inspired by traditional ghost stories. But look at the body of the worm. See the blue and white segments?" Yukie pointed out.

"Are they—They're the plates!" Rose smiled, because it was a fun touch for the artist to put that in, too.

"They are. Now _this_ picture is of a Japanese warrior woman, Tomoe Gozen. She was one of my heroes, growing up. You remember the tale of Hoichi the Earless, who performed for the ghosts? Well, the saga he performed for him was the Tale of the Heike, which is known to be historically accurate in most details, and Tomoe was in it. She fought in and survived the Genpai war, which took place from 1180 to 1185. She was the wife of Minamoto no Yoshinaka.

"It was said of her that she was especially beautiful, with white skin, long hair, and charming features. She was also a remarkably strong archer, and as a swordswoman she was a warrior worth a thousand, ready to confront a demon or a god, mounted or on foot. She handled unbroken horses with superb skill; she rode unscathed down perilous descents. Whenever a battle was imminent, Yoshinaka sent her out as his first captain, equipped with strong armor, an oversized sword, and a mighty bow; and she performed more deeds of valor than any of his other warriors." It sounded like she was quoting something from memory.

"Wow! Definitely badass! I like her already." Rose peered closer at the picture. It showed a warrior in red armor, and her face was quite female, leaning on a spear.

"If you like her, then you'll like my other hero, Empress Jingu. When her husband was killed in battle, she put on his armor, picked up his weapons, got on his horse—_and_ she was pregnant at the time—went out and won first the battle and then the war before she had her baby. It was a boy, and the heir to the kingdom.

"When people complained that she couldn't serve as Regent for her son, because it was only a fluke and women couldn't win wars or run a country, she invaded and conquered Korea, to prove it wasn't. She ruled in her son's name until he came of age—that was from 201AD until about 217AD."

Rose looked at the image of Jingu. "Is she wearing a _bustle_ in this print?"

"The print was engraved after Japan was open to the West, and the artist chose to depict her in a fashionable Victorian gown." Yukie explained.

"I suppose that makes as much sense as Hollywood movies where the heroine always has modern hair and makeup no matter what era it is," Slade commented.

"Tomoe's story doesn't end so happily," Yukie turned the topic back to her first hero. "At the battle of Awazu, when her husband's troops were outnumbered and defeat was imminent, he sent her away the night before he died. After years of not simply being married, but comrades-in-arms, he suddenly declared that he wanted to die with his foster brother and dying beside a woman would be humiliating and dishonorable."

"I would think he did it because he cared for her, and he wanted her to live," Slade said.

"Perhaps that was the case," Yukie said, "but still it must have been a blow to her, after so many years. She had earned the right to be there at the end, bitter though it might have been. She survived, however. Some accounts say she shaved her head and became a nun—a Buddhist nun, of course. Others say she was defeated by a warrior named Wada Yoshimori, who then kept her as a concubine or a secondary wife. Either way, she disappears from history."

Rose looked from Yukie to the images, and then to her father. "Today is very educational. I'm really starting to understand things, I think." She did not mean Japan, however, but why Yukie was with Deathstroke. It made sense now that Rose knew who Yukie's heroes were. Strong warrior women who were also the wives of warriors? And Yukie spoke of them reverently, her face glowing.

Yeah, she saw it now.

* * *

A/N: Turkey week….ate so much…uhhhhh. Thank you, Swordstitcher!


	28. Kitaro, Slade: Calculations

At a noodle stand near a park where the feral green parakeets were known to roost, Kitaro ate his bowl of udon slowly, watching one particular parakeet, the one with a green beak instead of the normal pink. He was beginning to think better of waiting a few days before collecting the kid and returning him to his friends. At least now he knew something about who the green-skinned human was, having charmed a local girl with a laptop computer into looking up 'green skinned American shapeshifter' for him. The first effort turned up a huge ogre-like man called 'the Hulk', but when he had her add 'animal' to the search terms, the computer produced the name 'Beast Boy', and a number of pictures.

So the kid was a 'super hero'. Well, humans had always produced a few among their number with yokai-like traits and abilities.

Back when Kitaro was a just-weaned cub, three hundred years ago or so, there had been two whole villages of them in Shiga prefecture, Iga and Koga. They called themselves Shinobi, which unfortunately was written with the same kanji as ninja, leading to a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. Ninja were perfectly ordinary, highly trained human guerilla fighters and intelligence agents. Shinobi had had superpowers—flight, imperceptibility, super speed—it was too bad the warlord Oda Nobunaga had all the families slaughtered, wiping out all the old bloodlines. Oh, maybe a few had survived, those out on missions, but not enough. The Shinobi were dead.

Yet now there were so many humans in the world, and people were less likely to burn, crucify, hang, or smother children who turned out to be a bit different, so these abilities were coming back.

All of that was neither here nor there. Kitaro popped a piece of fried sweet tofu into his mouth and chewed. His current problem was the freezing cold. Humans were sometimes tougher than a block of smoked, dried fish, and other times, they were as squishy as overripe bananas. The last thing he needed was for Beast Boy to get sick and die on him. He was going to have to get the kid out of the cold.

A plan began to form in his mind. He'd need help, some from his immediate family, so he'd have somewhere to take the kid once he collected him, but he'd need some help from other members of the yokai as well…

Draining the broth from his bowl, he paid and left the noodle stand. He had work to do.

* * *

They wound up spending most of the day at the museum, having lunch in the café there and visiting the gift shops, where Rose found postcards, prints, and some fabric flowers on barrettes and hairsticks while Slade browsed among the books on more martial topics, finally choosing a handsome volume on the art of swordsmithing. He found Yukie in the selection of vintage kimono, holding one in hematite grey against herself and frowning in the way women did when they were trying to make up their minds about a garment.

"Go ahead and buy it. It has your name all over it," he advised her. Her name meant 'Snow', after all, and it was embellished with oversized snowflakes.

She smiled when she saw him. "I don't need another kimono," she said. "My grandmother left me several which are older and more valuable than these. I wore one only once in the last ten years, and that one also has a snow design. So I doubly don't need this one. Yet this one is quite different…All I would ever do with it is hang it on the wall as a decoration, perhaps."

"That one's meant for a married woman, correct?" He recalled what she had said about long, dangling sleeves versus those of practical length, and this one had sleeves of the practical sort.

"Or a woman who is willing to admit she is not in the first blush of youth anymore, at least," Yukie said, letting the fabric flow over her arm. "No. Beautiful as it is, no." She shook her head and put the garment back.

"You're sure?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, but she reached out to finger the sleeve once more. "Now, it's time to decide whether we will dine at the ryokan tonight or not. I must call and let them know."

"Where would we go, if not back there? I'm willing to eat anywhere, as long as there's meat on the menu."

"Then you will most certainly approve of what I have in mind," she told him, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I'll call—and then I'm going to visit the washroom. If you're done before I return, I'll meet you in the lobby."

She left, leaving him to watch her wind her way through the shop.

The question of whether the two of them would have any family other than Rose depended upon how strongly Yukie felt about it. If she wanted it badly enough, he was willing to go along with it. What that might mean—adoption, donors or surrogates—well, he would face that when and if the time came. Adoption might be a better option than trusting his DNA would not make another Joey—or, for that matter, another Grant. Especially if the child was old enough that their personality and aptitude were evident.

Speaking of family, Rose came up with a shopping basket. "Dad, is it okay if I get all this? I've still got the credit card you lent me yesterday, but—."

"It's fine," he told her, glancing at the contents. "What are those? Kids' books on kanji?"

"Uh-huh. I am _going_ to learn how to read before I leave. So maybe they're a bit juvenile. I need to start with the basics."

"I have no objections at all. I'm glad you're finding this a learning experience. Now go get the grey kimono with the snowflakes and add it to your items before Yukie gets back—and take this." He held out his book.

"Oof, that weighs a ton!" she complained.

"Good thing you've got enhanced strength, then," he quipped.

"Yeah, _good thing_!" she snapped at him, her eyes flaring with anger before she turned and strode away in the direction of the kimono.

She meant the serum, of course. He had never explained why he gave it to her. There were some things you had to wait for your child to realize on their own, and this was one of them. He would never apologize for doing it, because he was not sorry.

How vividly he recalled that day, ten years before, when Wintergreen poured two scotches and handed him one, saying "_I've got something to tell you, and you'll want this before I'm done_," and proceeded to inform him that his wife and younger son had not been burned beyond all hope of identification when their house was destroyed. Adeline and Joseph were alive and well—physically well, at least, for Joey had some sort of mental condition. A mental condition that turned out to be the first sign of his developing powers.

There was more. "_Joey has a sister. She was born eight months and one week after they disappeared. Adeline named her Rose."_

"_Bullshit_," he replied. Not because he believed Wintergreen was lying or that Adeline played him false, but because it was too much. His wife and son alive? Miracle enough. But a couple of days later, when he first saw Rose, hair scraped back in a frost-colored pony tail from which a few wisps had escaped to stick to her face, one elbow and both knees scabbed, clinging to Addie's hand and trying to hid behind her mother's legs…

A moment of sheer panic lanced his heart. Or maybe it was love, or both together. He'd made enough mistakes with the boys, how was he to be a father to a_ girl_?

Yet it turned out that of all the children he begot, Rose was the one most like him, the true fighter.

Grant might have made something of himself, but in personality and character he was too like Slade's father, a petty crook and con artist who was always in trouble, always in debt, always looking for the main chance and the easy money. Joseph was no fighter. He was dreamy and artistic. Slade been preparing himself for the day that his younger son came out of the closet and admitted he was gay, but as it turned out, that wasn't what was going on with the boy, not at all.

Rose was heir to all his talents and Adeline's, as well. Yet she was female, and that meant it didn't matter how good a fighter she was, how fast or how skilled—she would never have the upper body strength of a man. Her biology worked against her. She would never not be in danger. A man of equal skill would have greater strength, possibly greater stamina. And what if she were overwhelmed by sheer numbers?

Slade knew all too well what could happen to a woman on the battlefield. There was one thing he could do that would level the playing field for his daughter, and he had done it. One simple injection, and he would never be called upon to identify her raped and murdered corpse.

And for that he would never apologize. In fact, if Yukie had the right genotype, he would have administered the serum to her without hesitation. But she was not, and it would kill her if he tried.

Rose returned and thrust the bag into his hands. "You get to carry it," she informed him.

"I carry _everything_," he replied sardonically.

He planned to surprise Yukie with the kimono later, when they were back at the ryokan. In the meantime, they headed to an area with a variety of restaurants and cafes.

"What's this place?" asked Rose, peering in a window. "A pet store or an animal shelter? All I see are cats."

Yukie smiled. "It's a pet café," she explained. "Most people can't have a pet in their apartment either because of building rules or simply because there's not enough room, but they miss having an animal. So there are cafes which cater to them! All the animals get proper vet care, so they are in good health, and are chosen because they're playful and affectionate. The cats are rescued strays, but I believe the rabbits come from breeders. People pay a fee to enter and then have something to eat and drink while they play with the animals."

"That's a great idea!" Rose said. "I can't see it flying in the US, though. Health code violations and so on."

"It's a shame," Yukie sympathized. "Yet I'm taking you to another place which would never fly in the US. A yakiniku restaurant."

"What kind of meat do they serve?" Slade asked warily.

"Some time I've got to hear about the vegetarian meal business," Rose said, looking up at his face.

"A meal without meat isn't a meal," he told her. "It's a snack."

"There's not much of a story to tell," Yukie smiled widely. "The first time I ever cooked for him, I made eggplant the way my grandmother used to make it. Oh, it's like velvet on the tongue when it's made right! But traditionally there's no meat in the dish. He simply looked so dismayed when he realized—but he was very nice about it. He didn't get angry at all, let alone shout or throw the food on the floor. All he did was say he thought it would be even better with chicken in it."

"I also went out for a steak after you fell asleep," Slade added, but Rose looked dismayed.

"Shout or throw the food on the floor?" Rose asked. "Did somebody use to do that to you?"

Pausing in front of a particular restaurant, Yukie replied, "Someone who, with any luck, I will never have to see again in this lifetime."

* * *

A/N: You just know that, having said that, they'll be running into that 'someone' in the next chapter. That was the happiest, shiniest, most benevolent possible reason Slade could have had for administering the serum to Rose that I could come up with. It is not canon, but by this time, I've had the characters long enough to call this an AU of a sort. Plus, don't forget that he is a man of contradictions, and can make himself believe whatever it suits him to believe, to accomplish his ends.

My thanks to Swordstitcher and Tev, who are the best, and to the rest of you for sticking with this story. This is a bad time of year for writing—so much going on.


	29. Slade: Grilling

It turned out that at a yakiniku restaurant, you grilled your own food on a small burner in the middle of your table. It was a concept that would never fly in litigious America, due to the likelihood of someone getting burned. You ordered a selection of various raw meats and vegetables, which came cut up into pieces of a convenient size and thickness, grilled them to suit your taste, and then ate them with any one of a number of sauces or plain, as you chose.

"This is fun," Rose said, wrapping a strip of beef around a piece of green onion before putting it on the grill. "Like camping out, only without mosquitoes or rain. Oh, please tell me they do s'mores for dessert! "

"S'mores?" Yukie asked.

"You've never had them? You toast marshmallows—actually, they taste best if they're burnt just a little—then you sandwich them between pieces of graham cracker with a square of chocolate. They're called s'mores because after you try one, you want some more," his daughter explained, turning over her piece of food to grill evenly.

Yukie laughed. "I don't know if the concept has reached Japan yet, but you can ask our waitress when she comes by again."

"Yukie? Nee-chan, is that really you?" A woman had appeared at their tableside.

She was forty-something, short and a little plump, with a round, pleasant face. Matronly. Some women were clearly more attractive in middle age than they had been twenty years before, like Adeline, and then there were some who you looked at and thought:_ I bet she was something, back in the day_. This woman was in the second category.

"Haruko?" Yukie replied, weakly. "Y-yes, it's me."

"I can't believe it! After so many years—. Look at you, you're so elegant and poised now! When I saw you from across the room, for a moment I thought I was looking at Grandmother's ghost. "

"Haruko, what are you doing bothering these people?" A little old man came bustling up behind the woman.

"You shut up!" the woman snapped back at him. "It's because of you that I haven't seen my only sister in so many years."

"Your—Yukie? B-but still so young?" he stammered. Then his eyes bugged out at Slade. "Whoa, who's the huge foreigner and what happened to his eye?" He said it in Japanese, of course thinking neither Slade nor Rose would understand him.

"The huge foreigner's name is Wilson Slade and his ex-wife shot him," Slade remarked in the same language. "And you are?"

"Ah," The man's face grew red, and he bowed. "I am terribly sorry. I am Yamato Isamu, and this is my wife Haruko. Ah—your Japanese is really very good."

"Thank you. So is yours," Slade returned smoothly.

"My sister and my brother-in-law," Yukie confirmed for Rose's benefit, her voice very even and colorless. "Haru-chan, my friend Wilson Slade and his daughter Rose."

"I am very pleased to meet you," Rose chimed in. "Please forgive any social errors I might make, for I am young and this is my first visit to your country."

"What a lovely young girl," Haruko exclaimed, clearly charmed. "Are you enjoying yourself so far?"

"Yes, I am, very much." Rose replied demurely.

"Wonderful. Are the three of you here together on a trip?" Yukie's sister looked from one of them to another.

"Yes. I wanted to see the old country again, and they were kind enough to come along with me," Yukie's smile at her sister was genuine but a little strained.

"Haruko, come away now!" her husband ordered, grabbing at her elbow. "They don't want to be bothered, can't you see?"

"I see you running away from someone you'd rather not face again," Haruko retorted, throwing him a glare that should have reduced him to ashes on the spot.

By this time, Slade was quite amused by the situation. Yamato's general shamed-dog expression clearly wasn't new, and all in all, the man looked the very definition of whipped. "Won't you join us?" he invited.

"Oh, no", Haruko waved off the suggestion. "We couldn't impose—."

"Please," Yukie offered, though whether she was saying 'Please do join us' or 'Please go away' was open to question.

"If you truly want us to—," Haruko wasn't about to refuse twice. "Oh, Nee-chan, it's been so long .and I've missed you so much!"

"I missed you too," Yukie said, with a little catch in her voice.

"This makes me so_ happy_." Haruko slipped into a chair. "I want to hear about everything. Go get the waitress to bring our food over here," she ordered Yamato.

Yukie looked half ready to bolt, and he reached out to place his hand over hers. "Chin up," he told her. "We'll just have to trust he doesn't throw food on the floor and shout in public."

"He hasn't done that since the first week we were married," Haruko grinned triumphantly. "I let it lay where he threw it and walked out of the house while he was still shouting at me. He had to clean it up. It was drawing bugs and mice by then. Where you went wrong, Yukie-chan, was that you _cared_. I never did. What could he do? Divorce me? Not without paying back seventy million yen. After all, our parents didn't have any more daughters for him to marry."

Rose's eyes popped a little at that, and she looked back and forth between the sisters, but she didn't say anything. Good girl; she was learning when to be quiet and just listen.

Yamato returned, trailed by the waitress, and he folded himself into his chair with a sigh. Clearly all the spine had gone out of him years ago.

_So he divorced the gentle one and married the shrew. There may be some justice in the world after all._

"So, tell me, where have you been and what have you been doing all this time?" Haruko asked, spearing a slice of meat and laying it on the grill. "Nobody had any idea whether you were alive or dead until Great-uncle came back from America saying he had seen you at an illegal Jian Wu match, about to duel this one-eyed—. Oh! Was that—that must have been you!" she turned to Slade.

He reached over to squeeze Yukie's hand again. "That was how we met," he informed her.

"Amazing!" Haruko wondered, and then asked, "But surely duelling is not all you do?"

"No, for the last twelve years I have worked in the cryonics field, while Slade is a security consultant-." Rose had shared what she told the girls at the shrine, and it was as good a cover story as any.

For a while the conversation revolved around banalities. Yamato found a position with an importer of Italian food and wine after he lost the brewery, while Haruko was a free-lance feature writer who supplied articles to several magazines under pseudonyms. She produced her phone, and Yukie dutifully admired photos of her nieces and nephew. All the conversation was provided by Yukie's sister, whose spouse was silent except for the occasional grunt of agreement accompanied by a nod. The only person he actually spoke to was the waitress.

Slade studied him. The man did not look to be in the best of health; a fine webbing of broken capillaries around cheekbones and nose spoke of alcoholism, and under that ruddiness, his skin had a tinge of grey. He also looked to be over sixty, but ill health might make him look older than he actually was. Hitting him was out of the question. No matter how Slade pulled his punch, he might kill the man without meaning to.

In the meantime, Yukie had lost the hunted-doe look, relaxed and warmed to the conversation. "How are Mother and Father?" she asked.

"Very well, thank you. No. No, I'm not going to keep up appearances, not with you. Something is wrong. It's not their health and it's not money. I have no idea what it is, but they are both...nervous. Worse than nervous," Haruko explained. "They are frightened. Very frightened. Yet they deny everything when I try to find out why." She suddenly smiled. "Mother will never believe it when I tell her who we had dinner with tonight!" Picking up her phone, she snapped a picture of her sister. The smile vanished. "Unless you don't want me to tell them."

"It's all right," Yukie assured her. "You can tell them. Do not look for any big family reunion, though. This one is big enough for me."

"But I so much want the children to meet you! They think I must have made up having a sister, since no one else ever talks about you," Haruko wailed.

Her husband murmured something, got up, and shambled off in the direction of the men's room.

"He'll be gone for twenty minutes," his wife grimaced. "His prostate is the size of an orange these days." Her gaze swept over Slade. "Now _this_ is a man who takes care of himself!"

"I have to, to keep up with Yukie," he quipped.

"Yes, I remember," Haruko said, and when she smiled as she did then, there was a clear resemblance to Yukie in her face. "It's so good to see you looking happy and free, as you did when we were girls. That was what broke my heart when you married Isamu. It was like you were crammed in a box, and you cut off all the parts of you that didn't fit. Your spirit, your wit, all the fun just got chopped off… But Yukie-chan, I understand why you wanted nothing to do with the rest of the family, but why didn't you at least write to me now and then? I thought you hated me for stealing your place, when they forced it on me."

"I never hated you," Yukie answered. "I hated myself. I was too much of a coward to stay and watch what happened to you after you married him."

"So _that_ was it," Haruko's brow furrowed.

"Also, it seemed to me that I had failed at everything everyone asked of me-as a daughter, as a wife,-and as a sister as well." Yukie confessed.

"You_ never _failed me. Yukie, our parents-." She broke off, glancing at Slade and Rose. "It never mattered how hard Nee-chan tried, or what she achieved. She was no better than a dog to them. In middle school, when she tied for second best student in the whole school, not just her grade, Father said, 'Never humiliate us like that again.' because she wasn't first. Then the next year when she was the best, neither of them came to the end of year ceremony. You wouldn't act like that if Rose-chan got a prize, would you?" Haruko appealed to Slade.

"I would be very proud if she were among the top _ten_ scholars in her entire school," he assured the woman. "Provided she was the best martial artist in her school as well." Rose made a face at him for that.

"Well, you and Grandmother were there," Yukie said, "and you were the ones who truly mattered. That was all I cared about."

Her sister went on, "Meanwhile, whatever Ichiro did, he was always their little emperor, from the moment they saw he had a dangle between his legs instead of a dimple. He's our little brother. They'd complain to the principle that the teachers were neglecting him if he didn't get good grades. I remember the way they crowed with delight over the first diaper he soiled. But it's been downhill from there." Haruko drank a large swallow from her wine glass, and continued.

"He went to college-not Tokyo University, a third-rate one out in the sticks-and in his first year there, he knocked up his girlfriend. That was the last time they were pleased with him, because it was a boy. But they wouldn't let him marry the girl, though he wanted to. I told him, 'Man up and marry her if you love her. They won't disinherit their only son!' He didn't have the balls to stand up to them...She's still getting child support. Our parents pay it, of course. He never has any money. Ichiro's been married three times since then. They get younger and sourer every time. No more kids, though. Not with any of his wives. As for me..." Haruko paused.

"I was invisible to them, except when I misbehaved, so you can be sure I misbehaved a lot! Oh, I _was_ very bad!"

"You were never bad. You were just high-spirited, and you wanted attention," Yukie refuted.

"That's my Nee-chan. You always believed I was wonderful; how could I show you any other face?" Haruko's expression softened, and she looked at Slade. "I never would have become a writer if not for her, you know. All the hours she spent reading with me when we were children, but now look at us. Nobody would ever think she was four years older than I am!" She chuckled heartily.

Rose made a little, stifled sound. Slade smiled. He had seen Yukie's true birth date on her passport, and knew she was forty-four. If she was fifteen years older than he was, he wouldn't have cared. She was herself, that was all that was important.

"Did your grandmother look younger than her age, too?" he probed.

"Oh, yes, up until the last couple of years of her life. Then she was suddenly a little old lady, bent back and all." Haruko told him. "Then she was gone… It was only after that our family came up with the idea of swapping me for Yukie in Isamu's house. They knew she wouldn't stand for it."

"That still puzzles me," Slade sat up. "I understand there was money involved, but Isamu doesn't strike me as such a prize that they'd want to keep him in the family at such a price."

"They really wanted to see me married and settled down," Haruko shrugged. "Like I said, I was _very _bad, and since he'd done such a good job of cowing Yukie-chan, I guess they thought he'd do the same to me. Hah! His mother and sister pleaded with him not to divorce Yukie for me, but he didn't listen. Any more than he listened when Yukie told him not to degrade the quality of his product, and you can see how well both worked out for him! As for why I've stayed with him—I've got him broken to harness now, and it suits me to be the stronger one and the smarter one in the relationship. Speaking of Isamu—he really has been gone too long. I don't suppose—?" She looked appealingly at Slade.

"That I'd check on him? My pleasure." It fit right in with his plans. He moved his napkin from his lap to the table, stood up, and made for the men's room.

TBC…

'Nee-chan' means 'elder sister'. Awfully quiet around these parts…


	30. Slade: Apply Pressure

Slade found Yamato at the row of urinals, where he was directing a feeble stream into the basin. The expression on his face spoke either of intense physical pain or emotional anguish, but when the man realized he was no longer alone, his face went blank. Slade nodded to him, and since he was there, stepped up to the row of plumbing fixtures and put one to use. After a moment, he remarked, "I suppose every man whose wife has an attractive sister thinks about doing what you did. I bet Haruko was a peach back in the day."

"Uh," the man grunted, possibly in agreement. It took no great insight into human nature to see why this man had bullied and browbeaten Yukie from the very start. As better educated, more intelligent, and more articulate as she was, she must have intimidated him, but he wanted the money to modernize his brewery, and he must not have been able to get it any other way. Neither was he more imposing physically—Yukie topped him by several inches, and what with her also being a martial artist, he must have known that if he raised a hand to her, she knew how to take him apart. How else could he assert his dominance?

What a mismatch! Like yoking an ox together with a thoroughbred racer—the ox couldn't keep up with her, but he could hold her back at his pace.

Finishing up, he shook off the last few drops, tucked himself away, zipped up, and washed his hands, then waited for Yamato to do the same. Once he had, Slade made eye contact with the man. "I don't want there to be any misunderstandings," he said, "I want to marry Yukie. My last hesitation was about Rose, but she adores Yukie already. If all goes well, I'm going to ask her at the end of the trip. That would make us brothers-in-law."

He extended a hand to Yamato, who hesitated a fraction of a second before he took it.

In one motion, Slade twisted the man's arm up behind his back, shoved him against the bathroom wall, and hissed, "Unfortunately, thanks to you, in her mind, marriage is associated with feeling sick to her stomach and slow suffocation. She almost has panic attacks when she remembers being with you. Therefore, when we return to the table, you will bow deeper than you have ever bowed in your life—don't try to pull away, you'll dislocate your arm—and you will _beg_ her to forgive you for how you treated her. You will grovel, and the word 'If' will not come out of your mouth, as in, '_If_ I caused you any pain, I'm very sorry.' There is no 'If' about it. I trust you understand."

"Yes!" Yamato gasped out.

"Good," Slade released him, and the man sagged almost to the point of collapse. Striding to the door, he kicked away the wedge he had stuck there so they wouldn't be interrupted, and returned to their table, not bothering to check if Yamato was following or not.

"Our great-grandfather Kuwano-" Haruko broke off from what she was telling Rose to glance inquiringly at Slade.

"He's on his way," he assured her, skewering a slice of Wagyu beef and laying it on the grill. If Yamato knew what was good for him, he was on his way, but considering the course the man had chosen for his life thus far, that was not a given.

She nodded and went on, "He was a horticulturalist who went over with the second shipment of ornamental cherry trees that were a gift from our nation to yours. He helped plant them. I'm sure you've seen them all around the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. Then, since many people wanted Japanese style gardens, he stayed and opened up a landscape design firm and a plant and tree nursery. His wife came over to join him, and she taught traditional flower arranging to congressmen's and senators' wives.

"Their children were born there, and so were_ their_ children, one of whom grew up to be our father. But after Pearl Harbor, everyone was suspicious of anyone Japanese, even if they hadn't been back for generations, and Grandfather Kuwano was always in and out of officials' gardens, so he was doubly suspicious. Who knew what secrets he overheard or papers he might have read? Never mind that he was barely welcome further than the kitchen or the gardening shed, all their property was confiscated and they got relocated," Haruko was saying to Rose. "but for all of that, Yukie and I are still American enough to run for President!"

"That's—," Yukie said, then broke off, looking past Slade at Yamato, who had finally arrived.

He bowed until his nose was halfway to his knees. "Please forgive me for how I treated you long ago. It was wrong and bad of me to act the way I did, and I deeply regret it. I was an ignorant and clumsy fool, and you were too good for me. Please do not let it shadow your happiness or mar your future, for I am not worth it. I am truly and heartily sorry!"

Yamato then burst into noisy, messy tears, right in the middle of the restaurant.

That was rather more than Slade had required of him. Had he perhaps simply kicked the floodgates loose on twenty years of repentance?

Yukie looked more stunned than she had when she won the Jian Wu competition, and for the same reason. Something impossible had happened, beyond reason or comprehension.

Haruko sprang up. "Oh, how much did he drink when I wasn't looking? I've got to get him home. Where's the waitress, so I can settle up? Yukie, you have my number now. We've got to get together again before you leave Tokyo, so text me, call me or message me. Rose-chan, take every opportunity to learn everything you can, enjoy yourself and be a good girl! Wilson-san—."

Yukie's unlikely sister paused, and bowed to him from the waist. "Thank you for taking such good care of my beloved sister. Please, I hope you'll keep on doing so for many years to come." When she straightened up again, he saw tears glittering in her eyes.

"Thank you," he replied. "I'll do my best, to the extent that she'll let me." Taking his seat once again as the Yamatos left, he remarked, "I appreciate how people pretend they didn't notice anything. It's very considerate of them."

"We're known for minding our own business," Yukie said, and turned to Rose. "I know you're bursting with questions at this point, and I thank you for not exploding while they were here. It was very kind and tactful of you. Yes, I was married to him a very long time ago, and yes, he divorced me to marry my sister. He was also the one who shouted and threw things on the floor when he didn't like how I cooked or put away his clothes." She took a sip of her sake.

"Are you okay?" Rose asked her. "I mean, you look kind of pale. More so than usual."

"I'm not sure," Yukie took another sip. "It never occurred to me to let things lay where he threw them or to simply walk away when he yelled. I wish I'd thought of it."

"I doubt it would have done any good," Slade said, refilling her cup. "He had a Plan B waiting all along, with your parents' complicity. What did she do that was so bad, did she say?"

"Yes, although she put it in a way that Rose would not understand the subtext. She was caught making out with a classmate in high school, and was expelled for it."

"Yeah, I was wondering why that was so bad," Rose said.

"Being caught with a boy would not be shocking today, here or in America. Then it would have earned her a lecture and gotten her grounded. But you see, we went to an all _girls'_ school. So it was not so simple. It was unthinkable. Even today there is not very much tolerance or support for those who choose to be 'out'. Social roles are so rigid here. Haruko never told me… I never got even a hint of why she was expelled, just that she was, and I had only just gotten married, so I had other things on my mind. Even now, I don't know if that was youthful experimentation on her part, or if she stays married to him because she can't marry who she loves-if there is such a one."

"Oh! Okay," Rose said, "But—if I can ask—why did you marry him in the first place?"

Yukie glanced away. "First, I didn't lie to you or to the girls at the shrine. I have had a very exciting life and fulfilling career, and going to Tokyo University did make all the difference. It simply did not happen right away. After I graduated, I could not get hired, not for any position I wanted. I went to interviews, only to be told I was overeducated for any position for which they would consider me qualified. When I said I would take any job, even if it was only as an office flower—that's what they call newly hired young women in support positions, office flowers—they smiled and said I didn't fit their corporate image. I blamed it on the twitching—but in all truth, I was not attractive back then.

"Growing up, my nickname was 'The Stork', because I was tall, skinny and ungainly. My awkward phase lasted twenty years." She smiled wistfully. "Grandmother used to say 'You're going to be a late bloomer, Yukie-chan, but remember: the flower that blooms the latest, lasts the longest.'"

"That's something else I was going to ask about, your age…." Rose said. "But you couldn't get a job anywhere?"

"I could have, as a part-timer or in retail or the restaurant industry, if I didn't tell them about my degree. The last straw was when I went on an interview only to see one of my classmates, a young man who graduated in the lowest percentile, already working there. _ I_ graduated in the top ten percent. Then I realized I was never going to get the sort of job I wanted.

"I went home, had a good cry, and my mother suggested that since I wasn't employable, I should think about getting married. Thanks to my many shortcomings, I couldn't hope to make a very good match, but they were prepared to pay someone to take me off their hands. I recognize now that I was depressed, after losing the possibility of competing professionally at Jian Wu, and then seeing no chance of a career either. So I thought, 'I might as well get married. I'm not fit for anything else.'…I'm not sure I am fine. I think I would rather talk about my grandmother."

"All right," Slade agreed. "What about your grandmother?"

"She- -I am not sure I can talk about her either at the moment." She was shakier than normal, and a residual tension still lingered in the way she sat. "I- -This was the first time I'd seen him in twenty years. In my mind, I remember him as towering and monstrous. Instead, he's a sagging, pathetic little man, the most ridiculous creature... How does your laundry get done?" She suddenly asked him.

It made an effective change of subject. "_What?_" he asked.

"If...this between us is serious, eventually laundry will enter into it, and I cannot imagine you doing your laundry, but clearly it gets done somehow because your clothes are always fresh and clean."

He had to laugh. "My laundry...When I'm traveling on business, especially on short trips, I just dispose of the smaller items. Otherwise, I use personal laundry services, just I do with my dry cleaning. How do _you_ do _your_ laundry?"

"I purchased a stacking washer-dryer unit out of my salary," she replied. "So you just throw away your dirty socks and things? That's wasteful."

"Arguably, but when I'm working,I travel light and I never take anything with me it would pain me to leave behind. When I have to leave somewhere immediately, as i usually do, I don't go back for my bag and I even leave whatever I used to do the job. I certainly don't expect you to do my laundry-or to do your own, for that matter. Just add your things to the laundry service and don't worry about it. Or do it yourself if you prefer."

"There are machines in the basement at Titans Tower," Rose said, "but you have to stay there the whole time because Beast Boy likes to pull pranks. In case anybody was wondering how I did mine, that is. Hey, where's our waitress? I want to ask about s'mores."

Rose effectively defused whatever drama remained, and they rapidly returned to normal. Yet there were still questions that remained unasked, much less answered.

* * *

A/N: Swordstitcher, this one is for you.

With this chapter, this story is now eighty thousand words long, and if I write all the supernatural encounters I originally had in mind when I decided to send them to Japan, it would be another fifty thousand words before I even got to the endgame. I wish I hadn't said this was going to be an eight week trip. I should have made it two weeks,

I want to get to the endgame. In fact, the longer I try to hold out, the more it feels like a chore to get through everything in between. And the more likely I am to do what so many have done, which is to abandon this story entirely. I don't want to do that; in fact, I promised several folks I wouldn't leave it, and them, hanging.

Therefore, next chapter will be the beginning of the end, and with any luck it will only take maybe another thirty thousand words to get there. My thanks to everyone who gave this fic a shot and is still with me. I hope you'll stick around and see it through.


	31. Tim, Gar: No Face

Gar came back with a story about Cozumel and a Brazilian lingerie model which absolutely no one believed, which was normal, but also with a newfound thoughtfulness and courtesy, which was not. Immediately upon his return, he made a point of apologizing personally to each and every female Titan, past and present, for being a huge jerk. He also stopped leering at every attractive girl he saw, and stopped making remarks about them or to them. He still flirted—nothing short of death could make him stop doing that—but the flirting was now more friendly and fun than suggestive.

Tim didn't put two and two together for a while, but then Rose called to tell him she wasn't coming back yet.

"I'm really enjoying this trip a lot more than anything else I can remember," she said. "I've made friends, I've been training at Yukie's old dojo—since I already dual-wield swords, Jian Wu is a natural next step for me. Fencing with her, though, is like sticking your hand in a food processor. I even sat in on Tokyo University Boot Camp one day, and I found out I could pass the math part of the admissions exam easy, even for enrolling the science program! Getting into their colleges is a lot different than it is here, you just have to take the exams, and you're in. There's so much less _bullshit_."

"So that's really something you'd be interested in doing?" he asked.

"I like knowing I could if I wanted to," she answered. "Anyhow, you can stop covering for me. In fact, I _want _you to tell everybody where I am and what I'm doing. I've been one of the Titans for two years now. Nobody can say I haven't been there doing my part, that I didn't have their backs. Maybe you all took me on out of pity, but that was back then. If I haven't earned my place by now, then I'm never going to. If that's the case, then I'd rather have it over with. Oh—did Gar get back home okay?"

"Uh—yes." It was a fast change of subject. "Okay. I'll tell them, and I'll text you once they've voted."

"Thanks. If I'm cut, then I'm cut. I'll survive. Whatever happens, though—you were my friend when I really needed one, and I'll remember that. Bye, Rob."

Funny, though. Even as he hung up, he felt like he could have—and should have—been a better one. He would have liked to help her find her confidence and shed the depression. He'd gotten so used to Rose the way she was—moody, dull, always a little unkempt, always a little desperate. Then again, he'd never known her any other way.

He went in prepared to argue hard in her defense, only to find out it was hardly needed. Kid Devil spoke up for her, too. Nobody seemed to think it was a big deal—but then there was hardly anybody left who had ever known Joey, let alone fought Grant, and Deathstroke had been keeping a lower profile, as well as keeping away from them. Consequently, Rose was still a Titan.

The real surprise vote was Gar's. He voted that she could stay. He was the one Tim expected to object, and loudly, too, since he was the one who had been there all through the Wilson saga.

Then he remembered how Rose had asked if Gar had gotten back okay. He wasn't her favorite person—far from it—yet she had asked about him with real concern in her voice.

So he cornered Beast Boy one day and asked. "So—are you ready to talk about where you really were? Before you start in again about Flavia de Oliveira, you should know I talked to Rose."

"Oh," Gar said, and looked hunted for a moment. "How much did she tell you?"

"Not as much as your face just then. So—what happened? You thought you'd follow her and find out where she was going?"

"Uh—I kinda stowed away in her carry-on. Obviously I had no idea she was going all the way to Japan, but I knew she was going to meet up with her father." Gar rubbed the back of his neck, turning a darker green as he did so.

"And when you caught up with them, what dire plot did they have going on?" Tim was not going to make this easy for him.

"Um…he was going on vacation with a lady friend. Kind of a honeymoon, I guess. They weren't expecting Rose, either."

"Going on vacation," Tim repeated. "Wow. That's terrible. Good thing you were on hand to do something about it, though."

"You can be sarcastic about it if you want," Gar said. "It was _embarrassing_. I wound up overhearing… Never mind. Anyway, I really wanted to get out of that hotel right away, so I did. Problem was, I got lost."

"And Tokyo has no phones? No internet service? No way of contacting the Titans, your guardian, or even just me?" Tim pressed.

"Well, you know how it is. You have to weigh the amount of trouble you're in against the amount you're going to be in when somebody finds out, and then you wait until you're in so much trouble that getting out is really the priority," Gar winced. "Yeah, it was stupid. And Tokyo was _cold_! So I hung out in the form of a wild parakeet for a couple of days, until…"

* * *

There was a little girl down there crying. Really little, like only five or six years old, and not dressed for being outdoors. She was utterly alone—nobody was calling or running around looking for her. Despite being a boor at times, Garfield Logan was still a hero, and heroes aren't only heroes when it comes to the big things. A lost child, alone in a park, without a coat and hat—that called for a hero.

Fluttering down out of the trees, he changed into the form of a great big St. Bernard. A strange boy who didn't speak Japanese might spook her, but who could be afraid of a big old friendly dog? He might not be able to help her find her way home, but at least he could sit with her and keep her company, as well as keep her warm and safe until somebody else found her. Adopting the body language of a dog as well as the form, he trotted up to the little girl and nudged her with his nose, whining a little. He planned to wash her face with his tongue by way of cheering her up and making her laugh. (When he was an animal, he retained the mind of a human, but he _was_ the animal. He had all the instincts.)

But when she turned to him, she didn't have a face. He wasn't looking at a mask, skin-tone fabric covering her features. _She didn't have a face._ It was like looking at an egg in the shell.

Then she started laughing, and it _wasn't_ a nice laugh. Suddenly all he wanted was to get the hell away and _fast_. He took off at top speed, still a St. Bernard, not knowing or caring which way he was going as long as it was away from her—whatever she was.

Then he ran into a kid about his own age, knocking him over and tripping as he did so.

"Hey! Watch where you're going and keep your dog under—wait, where's the dog?" The kid, who had dyed his hair red and bleached the tips white, was speaking English, and Gar realized he'd shifted back when he fell.

"You speak English?" he gasped in relief. "Sorry about knocking you down."

"Uh, yeah. We're a major international city. Lots of people speak English here. You sure don't look Japanese, so I took a shot. Are you—were you the dog? Or do you dye him green to match you?" The kid stood up, brushing himself off.

"Ah, yeah. That was me. I can change shape, that's kinda my thing. But man, am I ever glad to run into somebody who speaks English! You are never going to believe what just happened to me!" He explained about the little girl to the kid, whose name was Kitaro.

"Oh, you ran into a Noppera-bo," Kitaro said. "They're harmless. They just like to scare people. Say, are you okay? I can hear your teeth chattering. Where's your hotel?"

"That's kind of a problem. Y'see, I'm lost, I'm broke, and I've got nowhere to go…"

Kitaro was really a nice guy, Gar decided. He first bought the green-skinned kid a bowl of noodle soup and listened to his tale. "I think I can help you find the place your friends are staying. There aren't that many traditional ryokan left in Tokyo. But it's late already, and my grandparents are expecting me. I'm living with them while my folks are away. They won't be too crazy about me bringing a stranger back with me—but they _won't_ mind if I bring a stray cat in from the cold for the night. My grandmother was told a long time ago that being kind to cats brought good fortune."

"Even if it's a green one?"

"Trust me. I've got an extra futon, and you can have a bath once everybody else has gone to bed. Only thing is, first—my grandparents are really old fashioned. They don't speak English, have a computer, or even a television. They do have a phone, but no international long distance. Second, my little cousins are staying there too. There's four of them—all girls—and they_ love_ cats."

"Four of them? Uh—how little are these girls?"

They were ages four through seven, and cute as buttons. And they all wanted to pet him and kiss his nose and bring him saucers of milk and fish. The grandparents seemed like a nice old couple, but they didn't seem very well off. (What Gar did not realize was that they were all kitsune, and their 'house' was actually a fox den. Kitsune were tricksters of the highest order, and capable of casting illusions that extended to all the senses.)

* * *

"The problem was, by the morning I was really feverish and I couldn't keep to my cat shape. The good thing was, Kitaro covered for me by saying I must be something called a 'ba-kay-neko', a cat shapeshifter, kind of in the same category as a Noppera-bo. Grandma then thought that by helping me and taking care of me, I would bring the good fortune she was promised. So they took real good care of me, even when I was hocking up wads of stuff in all the colors of the rainbow. They were nice people, all of them." Gar told Tim.

"You were incredibly lucky, you know that. Somebody else might have thrown you out or called the cops, maybe even sold you to a supervillain," Tim pointed out.

"Yeah, I know. Anyway, after about a week, I was well enough to go out and try to find the hotel where Rose and her father and his lady friend were staying. We struck out the first day, but the second one, we found the place. Then it was a matter of hanging around until they either got back or came out. When Rose came out—." Gar whistled. "I almost didn't recognize her. Did you know she's dyed most of her hair blue?"

"I didn't know that." Tim replied.

"She has! Light shading to dark blue, and now she has kind of soft-spiky bangs. Plus, you know how she always smelled a little funny, but we were never sure if it was her or the thrift store clothes? No more. She's a _babe_ now. Foxy as—and I'm not going to go objectifying girls or women anymore, because it's wrong and hurtful."

"—what exactly happened to you?" Tim said. "Not that I want you to go back to the way you were, but it's weird."

"You have _no idea_ how weird, but I'll get to that. As you can imagine, she wasn't too pleased to see me—."

* * *

A/N: Next chapter: going into the ghost zone. I really did need to tell what happened to Gar, so I am!

Thank you to my friend Swordstitcher, and my 'Guest'!


	32. Gar: Fly On The Wall

Because Gar saw her from a distance, it wasn't so much the new clothes or the changes to her hair and makeup that made him look twice before he realized that really was Rose. Her body language was altogether different—she stood up straighter and moved lightly instead of trudging. She was even smiling as her thumbs danced over her phone.

"That's her," he pointed her out to Kitaro, whose mouth had dropped open.

"You _have_ to introduce me to her," the Japanese youth said.

"What? Umm—I don't think that's such a good idea. I mean, from a distance she might look good, but—."

"I could never work up the courage to talk to a girl like that on my own," Kitaro pleaded, "and even if I tried, what reason would she have to think I'm not just another jerk? I _have_ to meet her. Please!"

"It's not that hard to talk to girls you don't know. I do it all the time," Gar said.

"And how many of them do you actually become friends with?" Kitaro shot back at him.

"Friends? You think that's the point of talking to girls?"

"I think it's a good place to start—and how many do you become _more_ than friends with, then?" Kitaro asked.

"Plenty!" Gar insisted.

"Really?" Kitaro raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! Anyhow, the point is—hey, she's walking away! Quick, do you see a big, tall, one-eyed man anywhere?"

Kitaro quickly looked up and down the street. "No."

"Good. Rose! Hey, Rose!" Gar jumped up and down as he yelled, waving his arms.

Rose stopped, looked around. "Gar?" she called back.

"Yeah!" It took a moment for her to cross the street and join them.

"What are you doing here? Are the Titans—?" she asked.

"_What_ did you do to your hair?" Gar blurted out. He had thought she was wearing a blue scarf or something when he saw her from across the street.

"Oh, I just felt like changing it," she shrugged. "Anyway, what are the Titans here to deal with? Or—?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Oh, no. Am_ I_ the girl you had to follow? I am, aren't I? You little sh—sneak!"

"You look very nice today!" Gar gabbled, to deflect her fury, or at least try to. Besides, it was true, blue hair and all, and she smelled like lemon-vanilla frosting. "and—uh—this is Kitaro Yamada. Or Yamada Kitaro, I forget which way it's supposed to go. He saved my life."

"He didn't do _me_ any favor, doing that." Rose glanced at the russet haired youth. Then she did a double take. "Wait, I know you from somewhere. You were at Yushima Tenmangu last week!"

"Uh, yes." The youth ducked his head. "I was there to ask for help on my exams. I remember you, too, and your friends."

"Do you make a habit of photobombing other people's group selfies?" she asked him.

"So far, only those with blonde American girls who speak Japanese like they were born here," he said, with a quick, shy smile. "and so far I've only come across one of those. I never thought I'd see you again, much less get to meet you."

"Well, thank you for taking good care of my idiot teammate, anyway," she said, and her hand stole up to play with the ends of her hair.

"Ah…" Gar interposed himself between them. "Rose is visiting Tokyo with her very large, very violent father and his lady friend, and they might appear any moment."

"No, they're getting ready for a special date night, and I was going to meet up with my friends for pizza," Rose said. "At least I thought that was what I was going to do, but I think my evening just got more complicated. What am I supposed to _do _with you?"

"You don't have to do anything with me!" Gar protested. "I do need your help, but not right this second. You can go have pizza with your friends. I'll just go to your room, and—."

"Hah! Not_ my_ room, you're not, you little green perv. Not in _any_ form. If I wind up getting sent home because of you, I _will_ punch you through your face," Rose swore.

"Don't you mean 'in' the face, not 'through' the face?" he asked, like the smartass he was.

"I said exactly what I meant. I will punch you hard so my fist goes all the way through and out the other side," she emphasized with a hand gesture.

"Okay! Okay! Not your room. I'll go wait in some corner of their room. Probably as an ant or a spider or something." They were getting ready to go out somewhere, so that ought to be safe. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the last time. "Are they going to be out for a while?"

"Hours," she replied. "They told me not to wait up."

"Good," he said. She told him where the Asago suite was, and then left to meet up with her friends. Kitaro, he noticed, paused a moment before quickening his pace to catch up with her.

As a small green fly, Gar crept into the ryokan and then flew through the halls, evading swats directed at him by the innkeeper. Finding a crevice between the door and its frame, he crawled in, clinging to the ceiling, and before his compound eyes, he saw Slade face down on the futons, with his lady friend doing something to his back. Okay, maybe she was just rubbing his shoulders, that was innocent enough…no, she was writing on his back, with pen and ink.

Slade said something he couldn't make out, muffled as it was in the bedclothes.

"Alcohol takes it off without a trace, but it wears away by itself in a week," she replied, "for those places where alcohol would burn. And I am going to ink a character on _every_ square inch of your skin, heels to head. Except for your scalp, beard and mustache, of course."

More facedown mumbling.

She laughed. "I won't ink up your face until we get to Nerima—and I won't forget your ears. There! Now turn over so I can do the front of you."

Slade sat up, saying "It's an involuntary reflex, remember," with a rumble of laughter in his voice.

"What—?" she began, but then her gaze dropped to his lap, and she grinned. Gar was_ really_ glad he could only see the back of Rose's father. "Ah. I see. Well, he _will _be easier to ink like that, while the skin is taut. However, I am not about to leave you in this condition. It would get terribly uncomfortable."

_Again?_ Gar thought to himself as he wriggled back out of the suite. _Aren't they supposed to be getting ready to go somewhere?_

He found a spot up by the ceiling where he couldn't be seen or swatted easily, and waited. A couple of very boring hours or so went by before they finally left.

"…took longer than I thought. We're likely to run into Rose on her way back." Slade's lady friend said as the door opened.

"I wasn't the one who decided to take a nap," Slade replied, good-humoredly.

"No, but you were the reason why I did," she flirted back. She had something crimson in her hands, which turned out to be her hat and scarf, which she put on, then adjusted while looking in the hall mirror.

Slade looked over her shoulder at their reflection. "You should wear red more often. It suits you."

She smiled at him. "You always say that."

"It's always true. But enough of this for now. Let's go lay Kayako and her son to rest."

Those words—'Let's go lay Kayako and her son to rest.' chilled Gar to the marrow. A murder, planned for that night? He had to stop it! But how? This was Slade, and on his own, he would hardly stand a chance. He could try to follow them—but how could he keep from getting lost? Or call the police, if he didn't?

Fortunately, Rose returned while he was still torn with indecision. She had the complicated look on her face of someone who is not sure about something she ate. "Mayonnaise was_ never_ meant to be a pizza sauce," she said to herself.

"Rose!" He jumped off the ceiling, turning human again as he did so.

"Yaaah!" she jumped. "Don't do that, Gar!"

"Sorry! Are you still a Titan?" he asked.

"I don't know. Am I? After all, I'm such an evil and suspicious person that one of my teammates had to stowaway in my backpack where he _pooped_ in my change of clothes—yeah, I know that had to be you—and follow me all the way to Japan. You can't have somebody like that on the team." She spat the words out with sarcasm.

"I—uh, look, it was an impulse. I'm sorry. I won't tell—."

"Gee, thanks." She rolled her eyes.

"—but we have to go stop a murder. Your father and his lady friend are going out to kill some woman and her son! Right now!"

"What? No, they aren't. I ran into them at the entrance. He wouldn't take Yukie along on a job; she's support, not field. And if there was_ real_ trouble, he'd be wearing full gear and be armed to the teeth. Why do you say that?" Rose stared at him.

"Because he said so! Come on, we have to get after them!"

"What are you, eleven? I cannot believe you're almost two years older than me. What did he say, exactly?" Rose asked, crossing her arms and looking extremely unmoved.

"That they were going to go lay Coco," he mispronounced the name, "and her son to rest."

"Oh, then they're just going ghostbusting." Rose relaxed.

"What?" he stopped and looked at her.

"Yukie's been giving us a tour of haunted places in and around Tokyo. Sometimes she figures out how to lay the ghosts to rest. Like the Kuchisake-Onna—that means the 'Slit-mouthed Woman'. She was this really beautiful woman whose husband was jealous, so he took a knife and slit her face open so her mouth stretched almost from ear to ear," Rose explained, drawing an imaginary line with her finger.

"She drowned herself rather than live with a mutilated face, but then she came back as a ghost. For years, she's been terrorizing people-kids, mostly. She goes up to people, takes off this surgical mask, and asks them if she's pretty—if they say yes, she slashes their faces open. If they say no, she stabs them. If they say 'You're so-so,' she gets confused and lets them go. Everybody knows to say 'I've seen better, but I've seen worse', or something like that, so it's not like she's dangerous—if you keep your cool. Her face was all—well, the cuts were floppy and raw looking but bloodless. That's an account from an eye-witness—me."

"Eww." Gar said.

"Yeah. So we went looking for her, and when we found her, Yukie spoke to her respectfully and gave her a present of candy. Then she took a needle and thread and sewed up the woman's face. Ectoplasm heals up instantly when it's sewn, I found out. After she showed the Kuchisake-Onna her face in a mirror, the ghost smiled, thanked her, and disappeared. Hasn't been seen since. So, if that's what Dad said, that they're laying somebody to rest, then that's what they meant. I wonder why they didn't ask me along." Rose frowned. "I'd be up for that."

"Your father—Deathstroke—is doing that?" he asked, incredulous.

"He_ is_ on vacation," she pointed out. "Everybody likes to do something different when they're on vacation."

"Still—look, can we follow them? Just to make sure?" he persisted.

"Gar—." Rose said. "Don't make me punch you through the face."

"Please?" He transformed himself into a very small puppy with pleading eyes.

"Aaagh, all right." Seizing him around the middle, she stuffed him into her purse. "But you have to stay like that. Now, do you know where they're going?"

"Somewhere called 'Nerima'," he said, sticking his head out of her purse so he could look around. He had no problem speaking normally in an animal shape, although nobody was quite sure why that was, since the vocal chords should have been all wrong.

Rose located Nerima on a map of the transit system, and soon they were sitting in a corner of a subway car.

"Talk to me?" he pleaded, giving her the big puppy eyes.

"What about?" she retorted. "Look, for years you've basically shunned me, you and almost everybody else on the team. Dirty looks, leaving me to eat lunch alone, not inviting me places, whispering about me behind my back. And why? Just because I was a Wilson. Well, news flash: I still am. I even ran off to go on vacation with my father—my father, the biggest, baddest Wilson of all—and it turns out I'm having a better time here than I did in two years with all of you. So what changed?"

"I—um—." He looked up at her face. In all truth, he hadn't thought about her that deeply in some time. She had gone from being a possible enemy in their midst to being kind of a hostile, weird girl who smelled a little off all the time—and when you had an animal nose most of the time, that made it worse. What was he supposed to say? 'But now you look hot and you smell nice.'? Even _he_ could tell how shallow that sounded.

"Look, I'm…sorry," he began. "You're right. You're a teammate, and I didn't treat you like one. I just…I shouldn't have stowed away in your stuff. I wasn't thinking. You were acting weird, and…I thought something was wrong. And you didn't tell anybody that you were going anywhere."

"Because I knew you wouldn't understand," she replied, and turned her head away to look out the window. "And I'm not sorry I did. I'm having the best time—and I understand my dad a lot better now. I think he needed a vacation as much as Yukie did—maybe even more."

"So who is this lady friend of his?" Gar coaxed. He liked to think of himself as naturally gregarious, although others would call him in love with the sound of his own voice. Talking about anything was better than silence.

"More than just a girlfriend," she replied. "He's going to ask her to marry him at the end of the trip. She isn't anybody you've heard of. Her name's Yukie Kuwano, and she's the one who helped cure Nora Fries and got Mr. Freeze out of the villain game. I like her—I think. You probably overheard what happened when I got caught."

"Yeah, I did."

"I was—I kind of still am—afraid this is all some plot of his, that she's just somebody he hired who's a really good actress. Sometimes I'm sure she's for real—but other times I wonder. It's awful, being suspicious like this. It eats away at everything good I feel. I wanted to see them together when nobody was looking, but they always know I'm there."

"Well, _I've_ seen them when they didn't know anyone was there," he offered, because she did look so sad. "and I'd say they're for real. I mean, they really like each other. A lot. I didn't see that much," he qualified, because Rose's eyes suddenly got enormous. "but when they left the room to go out, she stopped to put on her hat and scarf, and he said how she should wear red more often. She said he always said that, and he said it was always true—oh, hey! Watch it! Precious cargo here!"

She was jiggling him around in her purse, as he was still being a teacup Yorkie, searching for a tissue because her eyes were wet. "Thank you, Gar."

"Any time I can be a fly on the wall, you just ask. Now, about this pizza. Did Kitaro go with you?" he changed the subject.

"Yes, he did. Just as a new friend, not as my date. He told me how he found you. Did you really run into a noppera-bo? We've been looking everywhere for yokai, and haven't found any, and you just ran into one! What was it like, really?" she asked.

With that and other conversation, they passed the time until the train reached Nerima. There was no sign of Yukie or Slade when they got out, but it was pretty obvious where the adults must have gone, for there was a big fence not far from the subway station, walling off a wide swath of the area. On either side of the walled-off portion, life went on as normal, but within the wedge, it was completely dark, save for a few feeble street lights here and there. They could see the shadowy outlines of houses and buildings, but no sign of human habitation. Except that in the distance, there was one—and only one—house with lights on."

"Okay," Gar said, still a fluffy little purse dog, "before we go scaling that wall, what does it say on that sign?"

"Um, I don't read that kind of written Japanese very well yet, but that's 'Caution: Keep Out!' I think that word is 'Guilty'—no, 'Condemned'? Maybe… That says 'Zone', and I think that means 'Earthquake'. Maybe." Rose sounded very unsure of herself.

"So there was an earthquake here that caused a lot of damage, so the area's condemned because it's still dangerous." Gar speculated, "and that's why they didn't bring you along."

"I bet it was the earthquake that killed those people," Rose theorized. "Well, we came all this way. Are you up for it?"

"Sure…" Gar said. "Let me get down, though." He jumped down as a tiny dog, but sprang up to the top of the fence as a full-sized cat. "Last one into the Forbidden Zone is a rotten egg!"

A/N: The noppera-bo might have been harmless, but I assure you, what's waiting in there isn't. My thanks to new reader falling Right Side-Up, to my 'Guest', and to Tev. Glad you came up for air, Tevvy! Guest, Rose has not yet gouged out her eye. With any luck, she won't!


	33. Gar: In Nerima

Okay: Trigger Warnings. Examples of street harassment, inappropriate comments, descriptions of spousal abuse, murder, child death, animal death. This one goes dark places.

* * *

"Just a second," Rose said, backing up. "I want to look at some of these stickers, or whatever they are."

Gar jumped down to have another look at the wall. Besides the official sign, there were also dozens of handwritten papers pasted all over it. Although he couldn't read them, they looked to be by more than one hand, because the styles differed widely.

"What do they say?" the youth asked her.

"I can't really tell," she confessed. "If they were machine-printed, I could make out some of them, but," she shrugged. "Maybe they're like, prayers and remembrances for those lost, like memorials at home."

Taking a few steps back, she approached the wall at a run, leapt up and over without touching it, like an Olympic hurdler on the moon, thanks to her serum-enhanced muscles and sinews.

"Hey, no fair," the green furred cat complained, and leapt up after her.

"Huh," Rose said, loosening the hood on her jacket. "It's warmer in here. The wall must act as a windbreak."

"I guess," the lad looked around. Whatever the earthquake had done to this part of the city, it wasn't obvious, not in this bit of it, anyway.

His cat's eyes had no trouble seeing in the dark, but Rose pulled out her cell phone and used the LED on it as a flashlight. "Just looks like a suburb to me," she murmured, "Okay, maybe one that's been abandoned a few years…but why hasn't it been repaired and lived in?"

"Ummm…" a memory stirred in Gar's brain. "Weren't there problems with nuclear plants after that one tsunami a few years ago? If there was a radiation leak, or something—?"

"No, all of that happened a lot further north," Rose shook her head. "And then there would have been the three triangle sign on the wall as a warning. Come on, the house with the lights on was this way."

They set off in the direction of the only habitation that looked as though it might be in use.

"Huh, that's funny," he commented, as he proceeded on four feather-light cat paws.

"What is?" Rose asked.

"The temperature. It's like, twenty degrees warmer over here than it is here," He ran back and forth, zig-zagging and pausing to demonstrate where.

"You're right," Rose said. "That's got to be something other than just the wall blocking the wind."

"Ghostly activity?" he asked. "You're the one who's been ghost hunting."

"I haven't noticed any changes in temperature around the ghosts we've seen. Besides, aren't ghost spots supposed to be colder, not warmer?"

"You'd know more than I would. So—how spooky has it been, running into ghosts."

"Pretty spooky," Rose admitted, unzipping her jacket a few inches. "The Kuchisake-Onna was really creepy at first—so were some of the others—but once you learn their stories, they're more sad than anything else. Just people who died in a way that they couldn't let go of their anger or desires. None of them were dangerous. That's just as well, because I wouldn't want Yukie to have to write all over me. I like her, but not _that_ much."

"What? What does writing all over you do?" Gar asked, because he'd seen Slade's lady friend doing just that to the assassin a few hours before.

"Makes you invisible to ghosts. It has to be holy texts, though—and you have to get every square inch, even what's hidden under clothes."

"Ummm." Did he really want to bring up what he'd seen? No. "So…." Gar began, "How was the pizza?"

"Bizarre," she said, her boots scuffing the gravel on the street. "I should have ordered plain, but I thought I'd try it their way. There was mayonnaise on it instead of tomato sauce, pancetta, shrimp, and avocado. The mayo was the worst part."

"Pancetta?" he asked.

"It's this Italian pork stuff, kind of like bacon," she explained. "It was the worst meal I've had in Japan, not counting the natto Dad bet me I wouldn't be able to finish."

"Okay, what's natto?" he asked, distracted from the possibility of dangerous ghosts.

"Fermented soybeans. It smells like sweaty socks left in the bottom of the hamper for a week, and it looks like baked beans in snot sauce._ I_ think it tastes like puke about to happen. Dad won the bet."

"Uh, yeah. I believe it. So… did Kitaro tell you how his girl cousins all were crazy about me?" he asked, bragging out of habit. "All four of them."

"No—but he did tell me there were four little girls who stuffed cat-you in a doll dress and made you sit in a baby chair and have a tea party with them."

"Aah, he wasn't supposed to tell you that!" he wailed.

Rose laughed. "I like Kitaro. It's nice to meet a guy who knows how to have a conversation and doesn't go straight to 'Hey, I want to get into your pants.'"

"Well, if you gals don't want guys to try getting into your pants, maybe you shouldn't keep such nice stuff in them," he quipped.

"Aaah!" she screamed in frustration, and strode away at high speed. "That is exactly what I hate about you. You never let up!"

"Hey! I'm only teasing, you know that," he ran after her on silent cat feet.

"Yeah. That's what they all say, or something like it. You've never walked down the street with an ice cream cone and had some guy say to you, 'When you're done with that, I got something else you can lick.' And don't you dare say that it's different. It's** exactly** the same. Do you ever listen to yourself when you—when you talk about Kory's _ass _when she hauls herself out of the pool?"

"But—it's just me!" he protested. "It's just, like, a compliment, because she's—."

"And you _never_ stop! They're _not_ compliments! It's harassment. I wish we had a gay Titan who made comments all the time about _guys _the way you do about girls, about how he wants to unwrap_ that_ guy's package or be the sausage in _his_ buns. Somebody big and invulnerable who'd never have to worry about getting gaybashed or even talked back to! How would _you_ like it, even if he never said anything about you, only around you? Would it be funny _then_?"

"Uh—whoa. _That_ wouldn't be right." he backpedaled. "It's different, that's all—."

"NO, it ISN'T," she said. "You have no idea how _much_, how _often_, guys say things _about_ us, say things _to_ us. 'Hey, you're beautiful. What's your name, babe? Hey, I'm not trying to sell you something here, I just want to talk to you, get to know you. Just—what's your name? Stuck up _bitch_!' Every girl I know has had things like that happen. It never stops!

Rose went on. "When I was twelve, my best friend's father looked me up and down, licked his lips, and said 'I can hardly wait till you're eighteen.' He didn't even have to touch me to make me feel soiled. When I was fourteen, this guy followed me into the girls' bathroom after school. He cornered me, and I broke his arm. Thanks to my dad, I knew exactly how.

"You want to know something? I got in more trouble for breaking his arm than he did for following me and trying to grope me! Because 'boys will be boys'. Because I wore a pretty dress that stopped above my knees. If I wasn't trained to fight and I didn't have enhanced strength, I'd be afraid to walk down the street! I—." She paused, both in what she was saying and in her tracks.

Gar stopped too, looked where she was looking. There was a child standing there, a boy. He wore only a pair of old khaki shorts, no shirt or coat, no shoes, and his skin was so white it was almost blue. He looked at them with an unblinking stare.

"Uh-uh," the green cat said. "The last time I tried to help a little kid in Japan, she wasn't even a human being. He's not even shivering, and it's not _that_ warm in here."

She said something to the boy in Japanese. In response, he opened his mouth, and out came a cat's yowl, long and drawn out. The inside of his mouth was entirely black.

"Gar," Rose said, her voice low, intense and urgent, "Whatever you do, while we're in here, stay a cat."

"What?" he asked. "I mean, sure, but—."

"I get glimpses of the future, remember? Usually while I'm fighting but sometimes because there's something bad going down. Stay a cat, it's the best chance you have of getting out of here alive. Now…I think we need to turn around and head back for the fence." They turned. Although they had only walked a handful of blocks, the fence was nowhere in sight.

"Uh-oh—wait, what are we getting scared of? We're Titans, remember?" Gar said, bravely. "But…do you have any candy on you?"

"Candy?" she asked, looking at him like he'd gone nuts.

"Well, your stepmom-to-be gave that other ghost candy, so—."

"Because it was well known she had a sweet tooth. Not because you can pacify all ghosts with candy!"

"And he's a kid! Have you ever known a kid who didn't have a sweet tooth?" he returned.

"That kid yowled like a cat. Who knows what he likes now?" Rose had her phone out and was stabbing at the screen.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"What I should have done on the train instead of talking to you. Looking up 'Nerima Ghosts'. This one's in English. Okay…'Over twenty years have passed since the murders of Kayako Saeki and her son Toshi by her husband Takeo, who also killed the family cat before going on to murder Manami Kobayashi, the wife of Shunsuke Kobayashi, the man he suspected of being Kayako's lover, and cut the fetus of her unborn daughter from her womb.

"Takeo Saeki was then killed by a person or persons unknown. Given the virulent nature of the subsequent haunting, it is believed that he was the first person killed by Kayako's ghost. So many people have died in the Nerima neighborhood where the Saekis lived that it has been walled off from the rest of the suburb, and the fence is plastered with wards and talismans intended to keep them in.'

"Shit. Shit. This is a _bad_ one. Shit! Aaah!" The phone's screen suddenly flared white, and she dropped it.

"What? What happened?"

"There was a face. Like those screamer videos, where suddenly something pops up." Her face turned toward him, and her eyes grew huge. "Gar—Be careful. Be very, very careful. Stay a cat. Be a cat. Don't freak, don't run, don't scratch or bite."

"What?" A very cold little hand descended on his head, and stroked all the way down his spine. He arched into the petting; he couldn't help it, the cat-nature was too strong to be fought. Then the boy picked him up.

A moment of confusion, like walking into a cobweb, and then:

He was a cat, a pure black cat named Shiro, the only friend, playmate and companion of a little girl named Kayako, a change-of-life surprise to her parents, who had accepted their childlessness decades before. Finding themselves new parents at the age of nearly fifty and over sixty, they weren't sure what to do with her, and so merely made sure she was fed, clothed, housed, and taught good manners. She grew up lonely, but not aware of it, until it was time to go to school, and met other children her age for the first time.

The lonely child grew. The cat Shiro was the only creature she knew that loved her. She was strange, estranged, fey, shy, too smart to be simple, too quiet to be normal. Hanging around the fringes of life, she was invisible. Then Kobayashi saw her one day, helped her pick up her books and papers. One moment's kindness, and she fell in love. Who could she tell about him but Shiro? Shiro and her diary, that is. She wrote in it every day of her life.

She was twenty when her parents died. An automobile accident. She did not cry. She did cry when Shiro died of old age, but she talked to him still, and Gar/Shiro saw, heard all of it. She inherited all, the house in Nerima, everything they had. It was good, because there was no way she could ever interact enough with people to go out and work. But the money wouldn't last forever. Yet there was a debt or two owed to the estate. Her father had loaned money to a man named Saeki Takeo. She went to ask him to pay it back. And that was how they met.

He liked her quiet, old-fashioned ways, her modesty, her shyness. Why did she need to go out and work? She could stay at home and be his wife. The same home she had lived in all her life. She did not love him, but that did not matter. What else was she going to do?

He was the only man who ever uncovered her body and touched her. The best it ever was for her was….not painful. But he was gentle and kind to her, although it seemed to her that she was like another household appliance, one which made food and made beds and was there for sex. The only time she ever saw him angry was when she said she liked an actor on TV. He loosened three of her teeth with his fist, made the blood run down the side of the bathtub when she leaned over to cool her bruised face against the porcelain. But he bought her presents to make it up to her afterward.

She got pregnant. It was a boy. Now she had someone to love again, someone who needed her, someone to love her. Toshio was the sun in her sky. He laughed, she laughed, he talked, she talked. Good times. One day a little black kitten wandered into their yard. They named him 'Mar.' More love. More laughter. More talking.

Happiness.

Mar/Gar watched the boy grow from a toddler to a sturdy little boy. One day it was time for him to go to school. His teacher was Kobayashi, that same Kobayashi she had fallen in love with long ago. Seeing him again woke something in her that her husband had never touched. She began to write about those feelings in her diary, fantasies, stories that were sweet and romantic at first, but over time became first erotic and then perverse and twisted. She wrote about things she had never done, things that were not even physically possible. It became an obsession.

Then her husband found her diary. He began by shouting at her, calling her filthy things, and then he used his fists. He did not stop when he broke her cheekbone. He did not stop after he battered her to the point where she could not walk. (And in all that time, the neighbors heard her screaming and did _nothing_.) While she was trying to crawl away, the floor under her slick with blood, he went and got a knife. And he did not stop…

All the while the boy sat and watched, silent and staring, holding the cat Mar/Gar in his lap. Too scared to speak. Too scared to move. And then his father reached for them…

After they were all dead, it got worse. Because they lived it all over again they lived it all over again they lived it over and over again…The woman was the boy who was the cat who was the mother who was the child it blurred and blurred and the blood and the blood

And then…

And then…

It changed.

* * *

A/N: A midweek update, because it was going so well. If you're female, I'm sure you have your own street harassment stories. If you're male and you've gotten this far, yeah, it really is like that.


	34. Rose, Gar: The Mouse's Roar

As she watched the boy pick up Gar with the care of one who knows how, and then wink out, Rose was on the verge of _running_, not walking, to the house that had to be the epicenter of the haunting, interrupting whatever Yukie and her father were doing, and telling them all about it. It was too serious not to come clean and get help, no matter what trouble might follow. The only thing which prevented her from doing so was hearing her name.

"Rose!" She looked up. There was Kitaro, who was standing on…a large white bed sheet which floated as if it were a hoverboard. "Yes, this is magic. Yes, I followed you and you can call me a creep and a stalker and beat me up later if you want to_ after_ we're far away from here safely. This neighborhood—it's walled up for a reason. Now give me your hand. We need to get out of here before the ghosts notice you."

"I can't. I think they already noticed and, and…this little boy took Gar. I can't leave him here. You _never_ leave a teammate behind. Ever." She spun in a circle, looking everywhere for him, for_ them_, in the shadows. "Gar was being a cat, and the boy yowled like a cat." She nearly stepped on her cellphone before she found it, but luckily it was not hurt by being dropped.

"That isn't good. But it's better than if he was being human, and the ghost decided to kill him." He jumped off the bed sheet, which flew away on its own, and landed lightly on the ground beside her. "Why did you come here, anyway? I thought you were going to spend tonight figuring out how to get Gar home."

"I was going to, but it was Gar. He insisted. He overheard my father and Yukie talking about coming here to lay Kayako and her son to rest, and thought it meant they were going to kill somebody. I should have talked him out of it, but…but I wanted to find out why they weren't including me." She laughed, but without humor. "I guess I know why now, huh? They knew it was dangerous."

He nodded, and suddenly flung both arms out. Little orbs of light flew out of both sleeves like a magician's doves, only they circled around the two of them, driving back the darkness, which had taken on an ominous syrupy quality, oozing and pouring closer.

"I knew they were going somewhere dangerous when you introduced us at the ryokan. Your father had the Heart Sutra written all over him, except where it would show in public. That's like armor and camouflage combined, against the spirit world."

"Like Hoichi the Earless," she remembered. "You have Mage Sight, I guess. What about Yukie, though?"

"Lady Snowblood has another sort of protection," he said, cryptically, turning in a circle to survey the darkness.

"Lady Snowblood?" Rose asked. "You mean Yukie? Why do you call her that, and what kind of protection?"

"Um—it's from an old movie. Her name _is_ Lady Snow, that's what Yukime means, and it just made me think of the movie, I guess. As far as protection…Your stepmother is a little further along in her spiritual development than most people. That makes her Teflon-coated and bulletproof as far as the supernatural is concerned."

"How do you know all this?" Rose demanded.

"Believe me, if you had the Sight, you could tell. It's like most people are candles and she's a lightbulb. 25 watt, maybe. Not blindingly bright, but steady—and it can't be blown out. That's about as far as she can go until she gives up eating meat and otherwise participating in deaths. Has she done this kind of thing a lot? Laying ghosts, I mean." He summoned a light in the palm of his hand, played it around the intersection where they stopped.

"In the last week, several of them. There was the Kuchisake-Onna—." Rose told him, but he interrupted.

"That was _her_? What did she do?"

"Sewed her face back together." Rose said.

"That…was smart. Look, being a really effective exorcist isn't about doing spells, it's psychology. The greatest exorcist in Japanese history, up till now, was Yuten Shonin, who took the time to figure out what would break the obsession that kept the spirit here."

"Like yelling 'Ten' when a ghost keeps counting plates and can't get past nine," she offered.

"Exactly! Okiku wanted to find the tenth plate," Kitaro clearly knew the story, "Lady Snowblood worked out that the Kuchisake-Onna wanted to be pretty again—that puts her at least up there with Yuten. That's reason to hope she can do the same for this ghost."

Rose asked, "So what does Kayako want?"

"If people knew, she wouldn't still be here. _They_ wouldn't still be here, she and her son and their cat," Kitaro played the light around some more. "Unfortunately, Kayako is the most dangerous ghost in recorded history…"

He let the sentence trail off. Rose followed his gaze. Out there in the dark, a girl—a schoolgirl only a little younger than she was—was walking along like it was a painful effort. Gore stained her uniform blouse from neck to waist, and as she drew nearer, Rose could see why. Her lower jaw was missing, and her eyes were glassy, but she was not a zombie. There was awareness in those eyes, and a look of pain and anguish. In the ruin of her mouth, her tongue squirmed like a huge maggot feeding on meat.

"She's not there," Kitaro said. "At least, she's not there, here and now. This place is warped by pain and suffering. We're going to see more things like this."

"Great," Rose said, trying to sound brave. "So, what did that girl do to her?"

"At a guess, she simply crossed the ghost's path. There doesn't have to be a reason for Kayako to attack someone, any more than a virus chooses who to infect."

"What can we do to help or to stop this?"

"At the moment, not much, really… the truth is, the only way Kayako can get beyond that wall is if it's knocked down, or if someone unprotected comes inside and goes out again. She can cling to them like their shadow, ride them out of here—and then she'd be free again. That _cannot_ happen. You see this suburb? Almost all the people who used to live here are _dead_. It's up to Lady Snowblood to sort it out."

"But we can't stay here," Rose said. "Look. I don't know magic, but I don't think touching the darkness out there can be good." The shadows beyond Kitaro's circling lights were growing thicker, and she was starting to see things in them…faces…eyes…

"I agree. The house is the center of all this," he reasoned, "and the darkness is thinner in that direction. It seems to be inevitable."

The two of them began to walk, picking their way carefully through the abandoned streets. Other figures flanked them from a distance, more of the dead. Some wore bloodied clothing, others had their heads bent at an angle incompatible with life—a few had ropes of hair wound around and around their necks, their faces blue and swollen from hypoxia. All were mute, and all had horribly tormented expressions, eyes alive with misery and awareness.

"Your, um, little cold fire thingies are very useful," Rose observed, nervously. "But why is it so hot in here? It's sickening!"

"They're called kitsunebi, fox fires," he said. "The heat is Kayako's hatred and rage manifesting itself. Look out!" A tendril of darkness swept under the kitsunebi, reaching for Rose's ankle, but Kitaro picked her up bodily and spun her back into the circle of light. He released her immediately, but she was caught off balance and stumbled into him.

"Sorry, sorry!" he said, because she had unzipped her jacket and he wound up getting to second base while clothed. It was definitely a Moment.

"It's okay," she said. "It was an accident, let's keep moving and not get eaten by the darkness, or turned inside out or…please let me shut up before I imagine anything worse. Um-how is it that this particular ghost is so powerful?"

"In the afterlife, things are reversed. The more powerless, helpless, and fearful the person was in life, the more powerful, dangerous, and fearsome a ghost they make. Kayako must have been a timid little mouse when she was alive, and then, she, her son and the cat died so close together both physically and in terms of time of death, that they're linked-children and animals are very powerless in this world."

* * *

Inside the Saeki house, Gar, still a cat, was experiencing some serious cognitive dissonance. With his own eyes, he could see the house was a rotting shell, decrepit and strewn with trash, that Slade was watching everyone in it with a piercing glare, and his face had writing on it now, as well as the rest of him, and that his lady friend was dressed in red and black, holding out her hands to a dark, fuzzy shape that pulsed in the center of the room. The room was also overheated, humid, and smelled sickly.

He himself was still in Toshio's arms, held firmly but gently in an inescapable grip. Hopefully it was too dark for Slade to see that he was a very familiar green, although at that point, being caught seemed like the least of his worries.

As the cat Mar, he saw something else entirely. The house was in good repair and would be quite a reasonable place to live if someone only picked up the trash and ran a vacuum cleaner. He couldn't see Slade at all, but Yukie Kuwano was still there, only she wore a white kimono and looked as if she had been sculpted from snow. She had a moonlight luminosity in the darkness of the room, and cold poured off her, keeping the room from being chokingly hot.

Instead of a black smudge in the center of the room, there stood Kayako, wearing a slim white dress and a lot of bruises. Dried blood caked her bedraggled hair, and she was as pale as her son. Her expression was the stuff of nightmares as she glared at Yukie. Her mouth opened, and out came a rough, rattling "Aaaaaaaahhh," dredged up from the depths of a crushed windpipe.

"You don't have to be afraid of me," Yukie said, projecting compassion into her voice. She reached out and touched Kayako's face—and then her life, Kayako's life, flashed before his eyes again. Was it for the third time? The seventeenth? The hundredth? Gar did not know.

But this time it was different.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, the chapter ends almost exactly the way the last chapter did. Sorry. It was that or wait maybe another week to update. Anyway! Thank you to Swordstitcher, who is sadly deprived of new Gotham episodes at the moment, and Tev, who took a moment from squeeing over DA:I. Which I now have, and yes, it is pretty cool. ;)

By the way, the white bed sheet Kitaro rides in on is actually a yokai called an Ittan Momen. If Rose hadn't been so upset, she would have recognized it!


	35. Gar: Hello, Friend

"I'm not sure how much I really understand about what happened next," Gar told Robin. "I mean, Rose and Kitaro didn't witness any of it from inside the house, much less inside the story. If it was Raven there instead of me, she probably be able to say 'Oh, this was happening in the spirit realm while that was going on on the physical plane,' but it was me, not her. We three did talk about it afterward, and as best we could tell, I got sucked into things because I was being a cat and at the same time, I was a kid. Just like Toshio and Mar were, because they were sort of stuck together. It seemed like I was part of them. Either that or because there was a place for a cat in the story and I was a cat, I had to be that cat. Anyway, I was seeing both the real world and what was going on with Ms. Kuwano and Kayako at the same time…"

Had Kayako been born when her parents were young and actively trying to have a family, nearly thirty years before, all would very likely have been well, but she was not. They were set in their ways and tired; at their time of life, a baby was an inconvenience and not a joy. Why should they disrupt their comfortable, quiet lives to accommodate this squalling, messy little creature? And so although she was never deprived of any necessity or mistreated in any way, neither did her parents make any effort on her behalf. It was neglect, but it was a benign neglect.

No play dates with other children in the neighborhood, no trips to the park or the museum, the library or the swimming pool. On rare occasions, she would accompany her mother to the store, but not often because she cried and shook with terror at being in a strange place. She was brought up to be quiet and well behaved, and as long as she was quiet and well behaved, they were happy.

It seemed like this playthrough of her life would follow the pattern of all the others, but then when she was four…

A new family moved in next door. Now when she looked out her bedroom window, she could see a few toys on the windowsill of the house opposite. A couple of days later, when she looked, someone looked back. Another little girl! The girl smiled shyly and waved. Kayako didn't know what to do. She dropped down to the floor and hid.

Later that day, her parents summoned her. The new neighbors had come to visit. They had two little girls, Haruko, who was a newborn, and Yukime, who was exactly Kayako's age. "Would it not be ideal if they became playmates?" asked the stranger lady, the girl's mother.

"Oh, I don't know," Kayako's mother hesitated. "The noise and the running around, the mess…"

"There will be no trouble about that," the stranger lady said. "Our Yukie has a medical condition and can't run around very much. She will be quiet and good—and surely if they play outside or at our house, they won't be troublesome."

"In that case…" Their first play date was the next day. Going into a strange house was not so bad, since all the houses on their street were nearly identical. But it smelled different, and the colors were different. The stranger lady led her to the other little girl's room and left her there. The other little girl was lying on the floor drawing a picture with crayons. "Hello, friend," she said, and scooted over to make room. "I'm drawing trees. You draw the sky."

Kayako sat down and looked at the crayons. Draw the sky? Why not something easy? In books the sky was always blue, which was wrong. The sky was sometimes blue and sometimes grey and other times red and orange and pink, even yellow or purple, and when it was about to storm, sort of a dirty greenish yellow. But then she saw that the girl was drawing apples on the trees, and the apples were yellow and green and red, like real apples, not just red like in books. So Kayako took a pink crayon and started drawing the sky.

In the real world, Yukie had sagged to the floor, supported by Slade, who was stripping off her hat and her scarf. Her hair spilled over his arm, and her color had gone paler, bloodless. He touched her face, felt her neck for her pulse. Deathstroke himself was shiny-faced with sweat. Well, it was swelteringly hot in there.

The two little girls grew. Soon it was time to start school, and naturally, being neighbors, they were to go to the same one. There they learned, among other things, that they were strange. Yukie had her weakness to heat, which was to send her to the hospital more than once, and her strange twitchiness, which Kayako never thought anything of until the other children in the school brought it up. Kayako herself simply could not speak in class and would have spent the whole day hiding in the back of the room if she were allowed to. But they were strange together, and that made all the difference. They were friends, Yukie-chan and Kaya-chan.

Time passed. The two of them are in and out of each others' houses so much their parents call them by each others' names. "Kaya—uh, no—Yukie—wait, you _are_ Kayako. Can you find my glasses?" Haruko grew up enough to follow them around and copy them all the time as they played make-believe. Yukie's parents had another baby—a boy, Ichiro. All he does is cry and produce stink, it seems. The two of them take dance classes, which Yukie likes and Kaya doesn't—too many people looking at her. Hobbies—Yukie is better at drawing, Kayako at coming up with stories, and together they make little books, hand drawn and hand written. Silly things, really.

It is not perfect. People make fun of them, Yukie's parents speak to her like she is dirt. Kayako's can't be bothered. When Yukie gets the measles, she has to go to the hospital because of the fever. For a while they fear she may have brain damage. Kayako throws up and gets faint whenever she is asked to stand up and read in front of the class. But they are friends.

The years keep coming. They turn twelve. Yukie and Kaya reach the stage when they are technically no longer children. No one told Kayako that meant bleeding every month, so when it happens, she starts screaming, convinced she is dying. Luckily it is over the summer when they're staying at Yukie's grandmother's. Calm and practical and kind, she explains matters to both girls—about what the blood means, that now she can become a mother, and how that can happen.

They discuss it afterward, and are in perfect agreement. Their own bodies are gross, boys and their bodies are even worse, and they are _never_ going to do _that_.

Except three years later, Yukie does, with Ryuuji down the street. "It didn't really _hurt_," she shrugs. "Just a little smear of blood—and it was over so fast. I thought everything would be different, afterwards, but it isn't. I'm still the same. I'm still myself. I suppose I'll have to keep going out with him for a while, but I wish I hadn't bothered."

This less than ringing endorsement strengthens Kayako's resolve to wait. High school goes by. Yukie keeps on with dance and with martial arts, Kaya learns to play the koto and takes flower arranging. She has a talent for ikebana, which leads her to think of perhaps becoming a professional, someday.

Graduation! They will go on to college together. First, though, Yukie is going to a Jian Wu competition in Okinawa for a week, and it is there that something happens which nearly ends their friendship forever. Not because either of them want it to end, but because Kaya's parents almost forbid her to see Yukie again.

On the last night of the competition, Yukie did not return to the ryokan where the team was staying. In the morning, the chaperones track her to a hotel, where she spent the night with an American serviceman, a man over ten years older than herself, married and a father. The chaperones called the police and tried to have him charged with rape, but Yukie protested, vowing to everyone involved that she was of age, she suggested it, and she led him to believe she was older, anyway.

"His name is Wilson Slade. We met the first night of the competition," Yukie explained. "He'd never seen a Jian Wu match before, and he asked me a few questions. We wound up talking for hours—and he came back the next night. We talked some more, and he watched me compete. I just liked him so much! I knew he was married—he told me his wife was one of his martial arts instructors. When the last night came, I asked myself—what would be worse, doing nothing, saying nothing, not taking the chance and always wondering—or taking it, and knowing?"

"So you took the chance," Kaya stated.

"I did. I'm glad I did, too," She flashes a sudden, wicked smile. "I don't feel like a virgin anymore, I can tell you that!" Her smile disappears. "But now it hurts. I miss him like I'm missing part of myself—and I will probably never see him again."

But she does. He comes to meet her family and apologize for the scandal, saying that he was already separated from his wife, and they are going to be divorced soon. He will not try to see Yukie alone again until he is free, but he is serious about her. He knows going to college is important to her, but once she's graduated, if she still feels the same, they will get married.

Her parents clearly wish their daughter had never laid eyes on him, but an almost engagement goes a long way toward soothing their feelings. No one expects that wedding day will ever come.

College: A great deal of work, but they are there for each other. Shiro, the ancient black cat who had been part of her life forever, finally dies, and together she and Yukie find a box, line it with his favorite blanket, put in his favorite toys, and bury him in the backyard. Both of them cry. Foul of breath and creaky as he had become, he was still her first and oldest friend. Six months later, Kayako's parents die in a car crash—her elderly father, now suffering from episodes of confusion and dementia, stepped on the gas when he should have stepped on the brakes.

Kayako cried, but after the funeral, admitted to Yukie, "I grieved more whole-heartedly for Shiro than for the people who gave me life."

"Why not? Shiro actually sought you out and enjoyed spending time with you," Yukie pointed out. "…I would cry whole-heartedly if you died, Kaya-chan."

"And I, you."

Another graduation day, and this time, there is someone besides friends and family waiting for Yukie after the ceremony. An enormous American with prematurely white hair, missing an eye—the infamous Wilson Slade, who returned for her as he said he would. She is too Japanese to fling herself into his arms in front of everyone, but from the way she looks at him and he at her, they still feel the same way about each other. He is included in the celebration afterward, where they learn he has left the army and is now in business for himself as a security consultant. He would be traveling a lot, but there was no reason why Japan could not be his base of operations. That way Yukie would still be close to her family and friends.

In the real world, in which only seconds had passed, the real Slade tore open Yukie's coat, felt her heart, and began CPR, swearing a blue streak between forcing breaths of air into her lungs.

* * *

"Wait a moment," Robin sat up. "But you said Kitaro said—."

"That she was protected? He did, but he admitted that was in the ordinary way. He had no idea what could happen if somebody laid themselves open."

* * *

He and Yukie married, and left on their honeymoon. Alone for the first time in years, this Kayako had more courage and more social skills, and used them to get a job in a bookstore while she studied to become a ikebana professional, the traditional art of flower arranging. While she was there, a man came in, Saeki Takeo. A professional illustrator, he was there to find a copy of a magazine his work had appeared in. He did not miss the fact that Kayako was both pretty and still a little shy. A few days later, he came back, and asked her out.

She accepted. Why shouldn't she? Despite the frequent letters from Yukie, she was lonely. She could be brave, too. She could be daring. A few dates later, when one night, he said, "I want you, Kaya," she went with him to a hotel. It was…not a bad experience, but clearly it was nothing like what Yukie and Slade-san had.

By the time Yukie returned, several things happened. First of all, due to some scandal involving Haruko, the Kuwano family wanted to move. Second, Takeo asked Kayako to marry him. She had no desire to move—the house had been paid for long ago, and she knew it as well as she did herself.

As a result of the scandal, which was apparently much worse than Yukie being caught with Slade in a hotel back at the age of eighteen, the Kuwanos decided to give their eldest daughter and her husband the house as a belated wedding present, and move to Kyoto.

So the best friends went back to being neighbors, as it had been for so many years, only where they once played house, they were now the ladies of their respective houses. Kayako quit her job in the bookstore, because Takeo did not like for his wife to be working there where any man might walk in off the street and see her. Yukie did not go to work either, for a very different reason: she was pregnant, and too ill for several months.

Soon Kayako was too. Yukie's baby was a girl, who she named Rose Naomi, and Kayako's was a boy, Takeo. Together they faced the challenges of motherhood.

Life was good.

Except it was sometimes rather dull, especially once the children started school. To fill the time, Yukie and Kayako went back to doing what they did as children: making handmade books, this time with stories for their children. Yukie did the paintings, Kaya the stories. One of the books, the one which explained what it meant to be of mixed race, was so good they took it to a copy shop and made one for each child in their offspring's classes. A copy found its way into the hands of a major publisher of children's literature. They liked it so much they made an offer. It was a very good offer, and after talking it over, they decided to take it.

Then disaster: Takeo lost his job. On returning home, he found the contract on the table, and he read it.

His wife—_his wife_ was being offered more for one tiny little book than he earned in a year, with options for several more. And her friend next door, that Yukie, she thought that her poor pathetic attempts at art, her little daubings, made her as good as a professional? She was in on it too. They were being paid the same.

It was an act of betrayal. He began his retaliation by ripping up the contract and then doing the same to the house. Every photograph of Kayako went the same way. All the books, every page torn out. The dishes, smashed on the floor. When he heard Kayako return home, he lay in wait.

The comic look on her face when she saw his expression, his lifted hand, almost made him laugh.

Then he backhanded her across the mouth. A man had to rule in his own house. She began to scream.

That did not stop him. What stopped him was the bitch from next door. They had keys to each others' houses, and had from their youngest days. He was only getting warmed up when she threw the door open, saw what was going on, and slammed him upside the head with a baseball bat.

"No!" she roared. "You don't get to hurt her. You don't get to hurt her anymore! You! Will! Never! Hurt! Her! Again!" Each of those statements was punctuated with another blow from the bat—his left wrist, his ribs, his shoulder, the right knee. Again, the ribs, and he felt them break.

How had he forgotten she was a martial artist? He went down after the next blow to the head, unconscious.

Yukie dropped the bat and went to her friend. "It's all right. He won't hurt you anymore. He can't hurt you anymore." Carefully she gathered Kayako into her arms. "Toshio, where have you got to? There you are. It's all right. It's all right."

* * *

"Then it got really bright in the spirit realm," Gar told Robin. "Like looking at the sun bright. Then Kayako, Toshio and Mar—not me, I mean, but spirit-Mar— were gone. In the real world, Yukie suddenly gasped and started breathing again. And it wasn't hot in there anymore. In fact, it started snowing through the hole in the roof."

"So she succeeded," Tim said.

"Yeah. Kayako—what she _wanted_ was to show everybody what it was like to be good and not make trouble your whole life, then get beaten and murdered while you screamed for help, and nobody did anything. That was what she did. What she _needed_, though, was not just for somebody to rescue her, but for somebody to care."

* * *

A/N: The past/present tense confusion in the flashback is intentional. My thanks to my 'Guest' for my hundredth review, woo-hoo!


	36. Gar: Coda

"So that accounts for a week, a week and a half of the time you were gone," Robin pointed out. "You were gone for another week after that."

"Yeah…" Beast Boy grimaced. "Y'see, Rose and Kitaro realized something had changed a lot when the temperature suddenly dropped, but they didn't know why. At least Rose didn't, so she came running up to the house, yelling, 'Dad! Yukie! Are you okay? What happened? Gar? Where are you, Gar?' It was kind of hard not to get busted, after that. Anyway, saying that Deathstroke wasn't happy to see the three of us is an understatement.

"Ms. Kuwano was still all shaky and weak and crying like she lost her best friend, so he picked her up and told us that if we knew what was good for us, we would follow him because he was going to find out what was going on like he was performing an autopsy. If we didn't follow, somebody was going to _need_ an autopsy. I don't know that I've ever seen him angrier."

"Wheeooh!" Robin whistled. "And considering how angry we've seen him…"

"Uh-huh. It was pretty scary. He carried her out of the house and then out of Nerima. We followed him like ducklings following a behaviorist. When he got to the fence, he didn't bother going over it. He just asked Ms. Kuwano if she was sure the ghosts were gone and nothing bad could get out, and when she said she was sure, he kicked a hole in it and we walked through. Because she'd gone into cardiac arrest—everything that happened in the spirit realm took only like a couple of minutes in real time, so it wasn't that long—he wanted to take her to a hospital, but she said she was all right. We wound up in this restaurant by the train station, after Ms. Kuwano wiped the writing off his face…"

* * *

"All right," Slade Wilson said, his mouth grim and set. "I will now hear exactly what happened in there, beginning with you," he pointed to his lady friend.

"I did not know I was going to go into cardiac arrest," she said, downing a shot of the whiskey he had ordered for the two of them. "Kayako wanted to get rid of me immediately, and thought that killing me would do it. That made me, briefly, a ghost like her, a ghost with a need too great to let go of the living world. Only where she was angry and wanted to strike out at the world, what I wanted was to help her."

She placed the shot glass carefully on the table, and said, " 'Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants help from us.' Rainier Marie Rilke wrote that. That was Kayako. Once I was dead, once we were on an equal footing, it was like…knocking down a child's blocks and then building something else with them. Something better. I went back to childhood with her, grew up with her...We went to high school together, graduated, got married—my subconscious has some very interesting ideas to do with you and Rose—all of it was as real as though I lived it.

"She and I were best friends our whole lives. I could not stop her from meeting and marrying Saeki, but I did keep her from forming a dangerous obsession with a man named Kobayashi, the one her husband thought was her lover. It didn't matter. He found another reason to try and beat her to death—but I stopped him. That was enough to set her free." She started crying again. "Except now she is gone, and I am left to grieve."

Gar raised a hand, timidly. "Umm…I was kind of there too. Not dead, and just as an observer, but everything she says is true. It was really, really…real. I know that doesn't sound smart, but that's what I've got."

Slade glowered at him. "Thank you. Yukie—you're sure you're all right?"

"Physically, yes. Emotionally, I will mourn her for some time, I think—but if my feelings were not real, she would not have responded."

Kitaro raised his hand, emulating Gar. "I have Mage Sight, and there is no sign of any damage, spiritually or any other kind. It was a very kind and compassionate act to free Saeki Kayako and her son from the bonds of anger and rage, and there are very few who would have seen them as people and not as monsters. Fewer still who could do anything about it."

Slade glowered at him, too. "And your part in this?"

"My part…When Rose introduced us, I saw that the two of you were on your way to deal with the forces of the supernatural, and I followed you. When I got here, I ran into Rose again."

"He helped me a lot," Rose confirmed. "His fox-fires kept Kayako's darkness at bay."

"And why were you here?" he turned his attention to his daughter. "Repeating the behavior that brought you to Japan in the first place? Did we somehow fail to make it clear that was unacceptable, and you were essentially on parole?"

"No…," she said. "You did, but—."

"Um….sir, it was me. Rose didn't know I followed her to Japan until Kitaro helped me find her today, and then I was the one who insisted on following you. She said she was sure you two weren't doing anything bad, and I didn't believe her. She just came along so I wouldn't get into trouble again." Gar said.

"And look how well _that_ worked out for you," Yukie Kuwano murmured. "But I think this requires a more detailed explanation.

Gar sucked it up and told them how he hitched a ride in Rose's backpack, then got lost in Tokyo, was found by Kitaro, got sick and was taken care of, and finally located Rose, only to wind up in Nerima.

"That's not all of it," Rose admitted, drawing patterns on the table with the water condensation from her glass and her finger. "When I realized you must be going ghostbusting, I felt left out and I wanted to find out what was going down just as much as he did."

"Rose, do you now understand why we left you behind?" her father's lady friend asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I wish…I guess you're going to be packing us both back to the states, aren't you?" Rose said more than asked.

The adults exchanged glances. "Him, yes." Slade Wilson jerked his thumb at Gar, who he then addressed, "And you're going back the hard way. Tomorrow we're delivering you to the American Embassy, where you will have to deal with the consequences of sneaking into the country without a passport or a visa. Rose…"

Yukie took up the sentence. "If this were the first or second day of the trip, I would say, 'Send her back too', but at this point, I think Rose has earned the right to make a mistake and be forgiven. She has shown that she truly appreciates being here and spending time with us. I plead for clemency."

"One mistake," Slade clarified. "Only one."

"Oh, thank you!," Rose gasped.

* * *

"So that night, I slept in the Asago suite, on the other side of the screen. In the morning, Deathstroke took me to the Embassy, and I was basically under house arrest there for several days. Finally, I got all the paperwork I needed to get home, but before I did, we three got together again. And I had to borrow a bunch of money from Rose, but I rewarded Kitaro's grandparents for taking care of me when I went and said goodbye and thanks for taking good care of me. I paid it back into her Titans' account, of course."

"But what about your change of attitude towards girls and women?" Robin asked. "Was it all because of Rose going off on you like that?"

"Partly it was, but it was also Kayako. I mean, I saw what it was like to be a girl and then a woman. Okay, she _was_ undersocialized, but when guys said things to her, she _cringed_ inside. It made her feel a little sick. That was bad. Then the way she died… We guys, when it comes to girls, we're most afraid that they might reject us or laugh at us. Women and girls—they're afraid men are going to beat them up, rape them and kill them. That's a really big difference! It's a really bad difference, too.

"So I decided I don't want to be somebody who makes anybody cringe or feel scared or like they're less than a person. Maybe that means I'll get friendzoned a lot…but being a friend at the right time is important too." Gar shrugged. "I guess maybe I grew up a little."

A/N: 'Ducklings following a behaviorist' is a reference to Konrad Lorenz, who demonstrated that ducklings and goslings will imprint on whatever creature is there when they hatch and take it for their mother. Thank you, Swordstitcher! Yes, I will have all the feels and play with them!

A short chapter to wrap things up. I think I will play with the order of the chapters so this sequence comes before 'Okinawa', as it does in story time. Then on to what happens at Hakkoda….and beyond.


	37. Slade: Okinawa

Okinawa. The southernmost prefecture of Japan, made up of hundreds of islands, most tiny, was home to thirty-two US military bases on Okinawa Island alone.

Ordinarily Slade would not have taken a hit on a member of the US armed forces, but the name of the colonel in question was familiar from the news and internet. It was an all too common story these days. A sexual assault charge, arrest, trial, conviction—and then a higher-up intervened. The colonel was too valuable to serve time for what he had done. The conviction was overturned, the colonel reassigned, the young woman left to suffer all the consequences, both within the military and in the eyes of the world, without even the consolation of knowing the man was locked up.

He remembered her face. She wasn't pretty and slender, she wasn't blonde and white, any of the things that usually evoked sympathy from the general public. The vicious ranting on the internet, jokes made about how she was so ugly she ought to be grateful, death threats—and this was against the victim, whose account of the incident was proven true beyond a reasonable doubt!

She took her own life.

Slade didn't know who was paying for the hit, and he didn't care. This one he would have been willing to do for free, if he happened across the man somewhere and didn't have to go out of his way.

So, since he was incognito on this vacation, he put in the glass eye he had but rarely used, applied temporary hair dye—dark brown for his hair, rust red for beard and moustache—that was the masterful touch, the convincing touch, because while the combination was rather common, it looked fake, and who would disguise themselves to look deliberately fake? People would remember the beard, and not so much the man who wore it. A blurry blue tattoo of an eagle on his forearm and the name of the colonel's original unit, as temporary as the hair dye, a change of clothes, and a set of fake ID completed the transformation.

A couple of hours later the colonel—who was now being shunned in the backlash after the woman's suicide—was three-quarters soused and pouring out his woes to Slade as he helped the man down an alley that wasn't going to take them back to base.

He said the young woman's name in the colonel's ear right before he snapped the man's neck. Leaving the body where it was, he unhurriedly went his way. It was the last of the jobs he'd agreed to before they left; he hadn't yet said yes to the North Korean assignment, but he would have to make up his mind soon.

Six and a half weeks had gone by since they had yakiniku with Yukie's sister and her husband. Amazingly, everything was still all right. Better than all right, truth be told, although all three of them had gone beyond where being on their best behavior could take them and were their regular selves with each other. Oh, there were moments, such as when Rose went off for the afternoon with the two girls she had met that day at the shrine, and came back with a defiant expression on her face and her hair dyed blue in gradient shades, still white on top, but shading through frost and dusk to midnight.

She looked both surprised and disappointed that he only laughed—because if that was the worst she got up to, they were well ahead of the game—and Yukie said she thought it was both beautiful and practical, because Rose would now attract less attention as simply another Harajuku participant.

Then Yukie, after the second time she went off for lunch with her sister, came back to tell them it had been an ambush by the rest of her family—father, mother, brother, and sister-in-law—not because they missed her and wanted a reunion, but because they disapproved of her being involved with him—not because he was a notorious assassin and a mercenary, which they didn't seem to know about, but because he was an American. As inducement, they offered up as a marriage prospect a middle-aged widower trying to raise two young sons on his own. A dentist, too—not just_ a_ dentist, but one of the top twenty in Tokyo! They had shown him her picture, and he was very anxious to meet her.

Also, and she should be grateful for this, he was willing to overlook the fact that she had been married before, and wouldn't hold that or any other previous relationship against her.

To her credit, Yukie said, Haruko was shocked to learn there was an ulterior motive behind the supposed reunion, and stuck up for her sister. "If you're going to trade, it's usual to offer something a lot better than what she already has," Haruko jeered at them.

"But he_ is_ better," their mother replied. "He is Japanese!"

Their last few days in Tokyo saw the arrival of two people Slade had never actually met: Victor and Nora Fries. Yukie had arranged a meeting between the scientist and the city council of Tokyo to discuss the annual giant creature problem. The enormous lizards and insects tended to wake up or hatch out in high to late summer, when the water in the harbor got too warm and stayed that warm too long. It was a natural project for the scientist to take on.

Slade had never met him before, or at least not to speak to, but the man seemed pleasant enough. As it was clear Yukie was friendly with him, and that she and Nora Fries were friends, no doubt they would encounter one another again, perhaps often. It would help if they could tolerate each other.

When it came time for them to leave Tokyo itself, Yukie and he to see more of the country, and Rose to return to the Titans and her studies, his daughter's newfound maturity finally went hyper-critical. She broke down, weeping, begging and pleading to be allowed to stay. She would do anything, she said, anything at all.

"Please, Dad! I already asked Yukie and she said she would like nothing better but she had no authority to make the decision."

"You're going to have to make up the quarter, if not the entire semester," he pointed out.

"I'll make it up! I'll go to summer school! Anyway, I'm learning so much more here than I would in school anyway." She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, a lot like she had when she was twelve. "Pleeeeeeease, Dad!"

"Then there's the Titans. You've given up on them, I assume? If not, be aware that this means burning your bridges there."

"I've given that a lot of thought lately," and the maturity was back in her voice and her manner, "and, even if that ship hasn't already sailed, it's like, me and the Titans, Yukie and her family—it's the same. They don't love her. They're never going to love her. It doesn't matter what she accomplishes, she'll never be whatever it is they think she should be. So she can either stay, keep trying and failing, and be miserable, or go somewhere else and find what makes her happy around people that want her there—what are you looking at me like that for?"

"You've succeeded in surprising me," he replied. "Are those your own observations, or did Yukie point out the parallels when she told you about the 'reunion'?"

"No, I saw it on my own. It's really kind of obvious, when you look at it from the outside—isn't it?"

"It is, but being able to recognize it makes the case for you that you're learning something by being here. All right, you can stay. There is a condition attached—," he began.

"Yes! Whatever it is, yes!"

"Listen to what it is, first, or you risk making a bad bargain. You will spend the summer with me, and you will train. Every waking moment you're not in school, doing things for school, or eating, I will be training you," he gave her a glare that said he meant it.

That did make her pause, and he watched the thoughts cross her face. Finally she said, slowly, "If Yukie is there, I will. If she's not, for _whatever _reason, the deal is off."

"Agreed," he said.

"Thanks, Dad!" She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him briefly on the cheek, then dashed out of the room, calling, "Yukie! Guess what? I_ can_ stay!"

He watched her go. That was the first spontaneous and genuine show of affection Rose had given him since…since Adeline had died? Or before that, since the divorce?

So Rose had continued on with them through Japan, looking for ghosts and finding plenty of those, but no yokai as yet. Who knew it was such a haunted place? But Yukie said America boasted as many specters or more, it was just that most people did not know the signs or refused to see them. There was a back alley in Gotham, she said, where a dead woman wept for her living son at night, and Arkham Asylum was so saturated with insanity, pain and suffering that any more would start causing temporal anomalies and warping the physical world as well.

From what he knew of the infamous Asylum, when it did, nobody would notice…

He turned up the collar of his coat, arranging the folds of his scarf a little higher. The cold was not letting up, even on the southernmost islands of Japan. Well, the tour of Supernatural Japan was nearly over, and tomorrow they would leave for the ski resort on Mount Hakkoda.

He turned a corner, and bumped into someone—a soldier in a Marines uniform. Peculiarly, he was not in cold-weather gear, but ordinary fatigues—or fatigues which had been ordinary general issue seventy years before. "Sorry," the man apologized. "Say, buddy, got a light?"

"Sure," Slade replied. He didn't smoke, but he had learned over the years it was a good idea to keep the means of starting a fire on him at all times. Producing the lighter, he lit it and held it out for the marine.

The man's fatigues were bloodstained and torn. The cigarette end flared as the tobacco caught.

"Thanks," the soldier said.

"Sure," Slade replied. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Dale Hansen, Company E, 2nd Marines," was the reply. Tossing Slade a quick, casual salute, the ghost vanished into the night, not all at once, but like the smoke of his cigarette dissipating in the air.

Slade shrugged mentally, and continued on his way.

In Okinawa, the hotel they were staying in was completely up-to-date, with Western beds and in-suite baths. He would have preferred a ryokan with futons, because Western style didn't mean Western sized. A Japanese king-sized bed left his shins and feet hanging over. Still, he'd slept in worse places. Entering their suite, he undressed in the sitting room so as not to wake Yukie, intending to slip in beside her—but then he thought of a good joke. Leaving the glass eye in and not washing out the dye, he left the light on in the sitting room, went in and put a hand over her mouth.

Her eyes snapped open and she tensed up for a split second, but then relaxed. Her lips smiled under his fingers. "Very funny," she said as he took his hand away, "but you smell like you and you sound and feel like you. Except that your hands are like ice! Here, let me warm you. Everything went all right?"

"Textbook," he replied.

"Good…I think you should have told Rose, assigned this one to her…she'd have approved…"

Pulling him down beside her, she draped her legs and feet over his, chafing and rubbing his hands to encourage circulation.

Slower and slower she rubbed, until with a sigh she fell back to sleep, limbs still tangled together.

He felt strange. Not as though he were ill, but this was an emotion foreign to him. Not happiness. What name could he put to this odd feeling?

Peaceful. Contented. It wouldn't last, of course, but right now, right _now_, it was…nice.

* * *

A/N: If you haven't read the last chapter since I revised it, here's the skinny.

This fic is already more than eighty thousand words long. And it was only supposed to be a Mr. Freeze-gets-his-wife-back oneshot.

If I write all the supernatural encounters I originally had in mind when I decided to send them to Japan, it would be another fifty thousand words before I even got to the endgame. I wish I hadn't said this was going to be an eight week trip. I should have made it two weeks.

I want to get to the endgame. In fact, the longer I try to hold out, the more it feels like a chore to get through everything in between. And the more likely I am to do what so many have done, which is to abandon this story entirely. I don't want to do that; in fact, I promised several folks I wouldn't leave it, and them, hanging.

Therefore, this chapter marks the transition to the endgame, and with any luck it will only take maybe another thirty thousand words to get to that ending. My thanks to everyone who gave this fic a shot and is still with me. It never took off with readers here quite the way I hoped it would, but it's still been a hell of a ride. I hope you'll stick around and see it through.

Of course I must thank my best-of-best friends, SwordStitcher and Tev—did you see I went back and fixed what you caught? You two are the greatest.


	38. Rose: Cherishing Girls Village

One day, Rose was reading a text from Saori when she realized the last time she could remember playing Candy Crush was in the taxi from the airport to the ryokan, that first day in Japan. What was more, despite the fact that she'd been so obsessed with it she had to get three stars on every level, she didn't miss it. She'd been too busy, what with seeing the city, studying kanji, texting friends, and crashing pretty much every night because her days were so full.

Right now, she was in the back seat of the rental car on the way to the ski resort, passing the time by reading a manga—and not a translation into English, either.

"I think I understand now exactly why there's as much manga as regular fiction books out there," she said, turning the page.

"Because even when you can read kanji, it's so obstruse that having pictures to go with the words is a great help?" Yukie offered.

"Exactly," Rose said. "It's like, a haiku is pretty much the perfect length for a poem in Japanese, and a sonnet is perfect for English."

"When you can pass an online literacy test in kanji, as a prize I'll teach you how my grandmother taught me to hide secret messages in letters." Yukie chuckled. "I love to read, and even for me it wasn't always easy. There was one book in high school, _The Tale of Genji_ by Lady Murasaki. It was the first modern epic novel written in Japanese and it was written in kana out of necessity, because women were not allowed to learn kanji back in the eleventh century. It is very, very long. We had to read it in kanji, because all literature _has_ to be in kanji. Reading it was a form of torture for me—until I found a manga version. What are you reading?"

"The Legend of Shutan Doji, and how he was defeated by Minamoto no Yorimitsu. Was that the same Minamoto who was your hero Tomoe's husband?"

"No, that was Yoshinaka, not Yorimitsu. But I loved that tale as well, especially when Yorimitsu cuts off the demon Shutan's head, and it leaps up and keeps biting at him."

"Aaah, I hadn't got to that part yet! Way to drop the spoilers, Yukie!" Rose wailed.

"Sorry!" Yukie apologized. "Forget I said anything about the demon's head."

"It's okay. Shutan Doji was a yokai, right? We've found ghosts everywhere—the coin locker baby, the mom and the little girl in the abandoned apartment building, the haunted tunnel where the prison laborers were walled up alive, and Dad even ran into that marine's ghost the other night—but no yokai. Do you think we're ever going to, or are they mythical?"

"The difference between ghosts and supernatural creatures, is that yurei, ghosts, are isolated individuals. Their lives are over. Yokai are alive, and they're part of a community—or so they say. It's like the difference between watching a movie and interacting with real people. Why should they put themselves on open display for our benefit? Maybe they exist and they're simply very good at hiding."

"Quiet," Slade Wilson snapped. "I need to concentrate on the road right now."

Rose glanced out the window. "Sorry." It really did look bad out there. Although it was mid-afternoon, there wasn't even a bright spot in the sky to show where the sun might be, that was how cloudy it was.

Ski resorts were by necessity located in areas that got a lot of snow, and the Hakkoda Ski resort was no exception. In fact, the snow was coming down so fast and hard it was close to blizzard conditions. Visibility was not good and it was getting even worse, so for the next quarter of an hour, everyone was silent except for the GPS. Even though the rental had four wheel drive and snow tires, the going was still treacherous, and Rose was even starting to get scared.

"Rather than push on through this, we could take a left at the next crossing. There's a village with a ryokan and a natural onsen," Yukie suggested, working away at her tablet phone. An onsen was a hot spring. "I can contact the resort and tell them we'll be there tomorrow. They'll hold the room—we did take it for a week, after all."

A moment of silence. "All right," Rose's father said.

That was one big difference between her mother and Yukie. Her mother would have said something like '_For God's sake, let's stop before you get us all killed! What are you trying to prove?!_'

Then he would grit his teeth and drive on, or else he would give in, and either way, he would be in a bad mood, while she would be furious if he kept going, and then they would have a fight later. Even if he stopped, her mood never seemed to improve. Yukie's way of dealing with things, which was to come up with a viable option and involve him in the decision making process, worked like a hundred times better. There was never anything to fight about. Rose had observed this several times over the last seven weeks.

One reprogramming of the GPS later, they were on their way to, "Cherishing Girls Village?" Rose read aloud as they drove past the sign. "Am I reading that right?"

"Yes," Yukie said, peering through the snow at it. "I wonder what the story is behind the name. I've never heard of this place before, but it is very tiny." Yet the signs were nice and big, the better to see on such a day. Exactly where the parking for the ryokan was located was unclear, but Slade pulled into a place and parked anyway.

It was not possible to tell much about the village, given that everything was already covered in snow and more was coming down all the time. There seemed to be a dozen or so houses, all with steeply pitched roofs meant to shed as much snow as they could. The wind had picked up, too, driving the snow crystals into their faces with stinging force, as Rose discovered when they got out of the car. Squinting to keep the flakes out of her eyes, she yelped when she walked right into a snow-covered pillar about her own height.

Except it wasn't a pillar, it was a statue, or it had once been. With the snow knocked off, it was a vaguely female shape, its face worn away by time and weather.

"Are you all right?" Yukie asked, coming around to see what had startled her.

"Yes. What _is_ it? A Jizo?" Rose asked. Jizo was the god of travelers both in the physical world and the afterlife, and a protector of the souls of children. They had seen several wayside shrines to him in the countryside, but Jizo was male, and this statue was not.

"Not like any I've ever seen. We can ask the innkeepers. Come on; take only what bag you'll need for tonight."

Once inside, after they had made their hellos, shed their coats and exchanged their boots for house slippers, Yukie asked about the statue.

"The miko statues?" asked the innkeeper as she led them to their room. Miko meant shrine maiden or priestess. "They're unique to our village, I think. That's what the archaeologists say—they're often here in spring and summer. Cherishing Girls Village is one of the oldest continuously occupied human settlements in Japan—maybe even going back fourteen thousand years! They've found some six thousand year old pottery, anyhow, in pieces. There are over two hundred miko statues around the area, in the village, in the woods, up the mountain. We have a guide and map to them that we sell—not that it would do you much good, not today, with weather like this. The youngest of those statues is over a thousand years old. Anyhow, we have a museum room set up off the lobby, if you're interested—not with any artifacts, they take those off for study, but with photographs and articles about the things they've found."

"Do the statues have anything to do with the name of the village?" Rose asked when the woman let her get a word in.

"There's a tradition here that having many girls in a family is a blessing. The archaeologists say that every generation, they picked a girl to send up into the mountains to become a miko and pray that the winters weren't too hard and there was plenty of snow, so there would be abundant water in the summertime. They carved a statue for each miko, that's why there's so many of them. Of course, there are those who said the girls were a human sacrifice, but they haven't found any proof of that. Ah, here you are! Now, the onsen is right through there—it's very small, so there isn't a men's-side and a women's side, but you're all one family and you're the only ones staying here, so that's all right. Dinner will be in a couple of hours, it's only shabu-shabu because we weren't expecting guests. Everything all right?"

"Yes, thank you," Slade said. "I'm going to see if I can't get the car in a better spot, though."

"Wow, she was…" Rose let it trail off.

"Very well informed and helpful," Yukie said, cheerfully. Well, Yukie did tend to be a bit of a know-it-all herself. You could love a person even when you knew they weren't perfect.

Rose paused even as she was unpacking some things from her bag. Love Yukie? Obviously not the way her father did. But…as a daughter loved her mother, or as a younger friend loved a friend old enough to be her mother? There was a difference. You could stop being friends with someone at any time.

Well, she had gone all the way from being afraid she was going to wind up with a stranger as a stepmother, back when her father had first told her he was seeing someone, to blindly just wanting to be a family again, seeing Yukie as a means to that end, but now it just seemed like a fact, part of the foundations of the world.

As an experiment, she gave Yukie a sudden hug.

Surprised but not displeased, Yukie returned it. "What's this, then?" she asked.

"Just because," Rose replied. "This has been a really great vacation, and you didn't have to share it but you did."

"It's been even better having you along," Yukie said. "I would not want it any other way, except that I wish it were not storming today. Do you see how early it is? Not even three yet."

"Well, I guess we could check out the museum room," Rose offered. "Where's Dad gone to?"

"He wasn't happy with how we were parked," Yukie answered.

"Oh, that's right." It had slipped her mind for a moment. "Yukie—can I talk to you about something? While he's not here? I'll try not to break your rule about talking about him, but this might kind of bend it."

"This sounds serious," Yukie said, her brows drawing together. "What is it about?"

"It's about Joey, and our mom." She really hadn't known she was going to talk about this, not until she opened her mouth and it came out, but she hadn't talked to anybody about this, anybody at all, and yet—and now—. Her voice broke as she went on to say, "Dad doesn't know I know it, but Joseph, my brother—he's alive. He's in this facility for dangerous metas with incurable conditions."

"I see. I know it must be terrible for you to think of your brother like that." As she spoke, Yukie opened a cupboard, pulled out the futons, and folded them into a seat on the floor. "Come here," she beckoned to Rose, sitting down. "I have an empty shoulder here."

Rose took the offered seat and the offered shoulder. Her eyes had started leaking without any permission from her. Yukie slipped an arm around Rose's shoulders in return.

Feeling safer now, Rose went on. "There's more. At least his body is in the facility, and _it's_ alive. That was the weird part about his powers, how he could go immaterial when he was possessing somebody. Where did his body _go_? Well, wherever it went, it came back, a few months after everybody thought Dad killed him. Dad pays the bills—you know what he believes about taking care of his family. I found it out when I went through the Titans database, last year."

"I'm sorry. I know it hurts when people keep important things from you, even when—especially when they think it's for your own good." Yukie rocked them back and forth a little, as though Rose were a baby she was comforting, and it _was_ comforting.

"But there's even more. There's someone who goes to visit him. Not Dad. A—a woman." Now the clouds burst, and she went from just crying a little to sobbing. "It could be a girlfriend of Joey's—girls really liked him. Or a former Titan. There are lots of people it could be—but it could be Mom. I could find out—but I'm afraid to. Because—because if it is, if she's alive too—then I can't love her anymore!"

"Oh," Yukie said. "So it's like that—?"

"Because he was her favorite—he was always her favorite—I don't know how I knew but I always knew. I look too much like Dad, maybe that was it—or because I was supposed to fix their marriage and so I was useless—or—People, the Titans, I mean, they'd be like, 'At least you had one normal parent,' but we _didn't_. Mom shot Dad in the _head_! She was trying to kill him, even if she only put out his eye! That's _not_ a normal way to deal with a problem in your marriage!"

The words were coming out now, as thick and fast and hot as the tears and even the snot in her nose, but she didn't, couldn't care. "All my life, until I was six—," What was emerging was something she hadn't even known herself, but it was putting itself together as she said it. "Until I was six, she told me, she told_ us_ our father was dead. Then Joey was having these attacks—it was his powers emerging—and she couldn't deal. So she got in contact with Wintergreen, because she didn't want to go to Dad directly. Then all of a sudden it was, 'Your father's really alive, I know I told you otherwise, but it was so we'd be safe. And you have another brother.'

"After that—I couldn't trust her. I was six, and I knew I couldn't trust her. Because she lied—because if it was so dangerous, why didn't she rescue Grant? And if it was dangerous, why go back? Because Joey needed help. She shot Dad because Joey got kidnapped, got hurt. Her body disappeared, but that doesn't mean anything. If she is alive, if she came back, but for Joey, not for me—Joey's a vegetable! I'm not! Why aren't I that important? I can't love her! I _don't_ love her!"

The last came out in a howl. Yukie held her and rocked her, made soothing sounds, and from the hot wetness soaking Rose's hair, she was crying too, only less noisy.

"I'm sorry," Rose said, once the outburst had calmed. "I've gotten your sweater all wet and make-up goopy." Well, some of the goop was make-up, anyway.

"Sweaters are only things," Yukie replied. "Rose—listen to me. A mother should not have a favorite, or should not show it if they do, but a mother is not a perfect woman. I know no more than you do why our mothers did not love us. Just because we had brothers they favored—. Loving one child shouldn't take up a whole heart.

"I always wanted daughters myself, but life—life denied me even one until now." She stroked Rose's hair, then kissed her on the top of her head. "I love you, my darling, my daughter, my own baby girl."

A/N: Cherishing Girls Village and its mikos do not, as far as I know, actually exist.

To my guest reviewer: Slade is playing a long game in getting Rose to come back and follow in his footsteps, and he's very confident of success, so he doesn't seem urgent. Everything is- -or seems- - to be going his way. But things are going on with Yukie that may affect his plan.

Thank you to Swordstitcher, and I know Tev is still out there even if she's stuck in DA: Inquisition right now.


	39. Yukie: The Reconciliation Elegy

Yukie held Rose and let the girl cry herself out against her shoulder, crying with her, crying for her.

_I cannot do it. Whatever I might learn on Mount Hakkoda, if indeed there are answers to be had there, they are not more important than Rose and Slade. Besides, it is a mountain and it is not going anywhere. If in ten years time or twenty, I feel differently, Hakkoda will still be here. If Ra's Al Ghul is correct and I am a long-lifer, it could even be longer_.

And so the conflict which had wracked her for weeks was finally resolved, and instead of anger or resentment, peace like a thick blanket of fresh snow spread itself over her making everything clean and beautiful.

It was so simple, finally.

It was all due to the girl she held in her arms. Were it not for Rose, she would never have learned that Slade thought differently of their relationship than she did, back before Christmas. Had Rose not flown to Japan and been caught, they never would have talked so much about matters, and if the girl were not there now, Yukie might have simply gone for a walk one afternoon at the resort, and never returned. (Breaking up with Slade was out of the question. They were getting along far too well for that to be credible. He would simply laugh, and if she brought up reasons, no doubt he would have counterarguments for every single one.)

But she could not walk away from Rose. Not after learning what her mother had done.

Always she had striven to be fair to Adeline Kane Wilson, even in her private thoughts. Whatever Slade Wilson had been like before he volunteered to test a serum that was meant to enable soldiers to learn a new language easily and swiftly, afterwards he was an entirely different man. These days, genetic testing would have identified him as a potential meta, someone whose genes were only waiting for a catalyst to give him powers undreamt of, but back then, there was no way of knowing what it would do to him.

Yukie had only met him years after that change, after twenty years and more had come and gone and he had grown into who he was now. What he had not told her, she could infer for herself.

The Slade Wilson Adeline married was as gone as if he were dead, replaced by a stranger with his face, his voice, his name, a stranger who was more aggressive, more volatile, more suspicious and secretive. He barely slept, rarely spoke, hardly ever smiled. He embarked upon a secret new career which brought her and their children into peril.

Yukie had not lived through what Adeline had. She had no right to criticize how Adeline had coped or not coped.

That, however, was before she learned what Rose had gone through, and she believed what Slade's daughter said because she had seen the signs of it from the first hour. Whatever had gone wrong between husband and wife was one thing, but Rose had been neglected, not physically or materially, but kept on an emotional starvation diet and parched for attention. She had been left ignorant of even simple and practical things, like that bloodstains on clothing were best treated with hydrogen peroxide and then washed with cold water, surely something every girl of an age to menstruate ought to know.

When it came to the truly important matters, such as her own worth as a person, it was worse. Rose did not see how wonderful, how intelligent and lovely she was, how irreplaceable.

It was that which broke Yukie's heart and incited her to fury against Adeline. True, the woman had been afraid, and rightly so, for the life and sanity of her son Joseph, but that did not excuse her. If she were alive, and more concerned for Joseph still—! It would be better if they never crossed paths. She would never say a word against her, but Yukie no longer felt any constraints as to how she should think of her.

Yukie and Rose were still hugging when Slade returned. "What happened?" he asked, looking bewildered and appalled at the emotional disaster area. "Did someone die?"

Rose hiccupped and gulped. "Shut up, Dad. We're women. We just do this sometimes. It _happens_."

"The average woman cries more than five times a month," Yukie confirmed. "I looked it up once. Therefore we are well overdue."

He furrowed his brow and shook his head, muttering something sotto voce that sounded like, '_I leave them alone for five minutes and come back to this_.' Out loud he said, "I'm giving you warning. Our hostess said she's bringing tea and snacks in about fifteen minutes."

"Thank you," Yukie said, and patted Rose's shoulder, looking at her inquisitively.

Rose understood. "I'm a lot better now." She brushed her hair back from her face. "Let me go wash up." Getting to her feet, she went off in the direction of the bathroom.

Yukie stood up as well, smoothing her trousers back into place

"Everything okay?" Slade asked, nodding toward the door.

"Yes. Contrary to how it may look, this was a very positive thing." She unbuttoned her cardigan, which was now damp and stained_. A small price to pay for what it brought_.

"I'll take your word for it." He scanned her face. "Then again, that smile says more than words. What was that about?"

She shook her head. "It's complicated and it is between Rose and I." Finding a clean pullover, she donned it.

Once she had her own turn at washing her face and the innkeeper brought in a tray, she took a moment to look at them, her best beloveds.

_It seems I have decided to live_. She could not suppress her smile, which gave way to a chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Rose asked, taking a piece of yohkan candy.

"I have a problem," she confessed. "You see, for all the effort and planning I put into this trip, I put none into what comes afterward. I am essentially homeless and unemployed at this very moment—although not impoverished, not in the least! I need not work for quite some time, provided I live sensibly and watch my investment portfolio. The Fries let me store with them all the belongings I did not bring with me on this trip, and I'm sure if I asked, he would take me on again as his assistant.

"Yet that is not what I would choose. It feels as though that chapter of my life is closed. However, that does not answer where I will go once I return to the States."

"Well, Dad?" Rose gave him a meaningful look. "You're good at solving problems. Making them, mostly, but solving them too."

"Where do you want to live?" he asked. "If I don't have a place there already, that can be changed. If you want to try each of my houses in turn, we can do that too." His tone of voice was offhanded, casual.

"Do you have a lot of houses?" she asked.

"Several," he shrugged. "Nothing in or around Gotham, though. The whole area is a poor real estate investment."

"I would prefer somewhere less hot and humid in the summer and where people are not so prone to overexcitement." Yukie admitted.

Rose laughed. "I like how you say that, as if they spilled the tea on the Countess at Downton Abby instead of crazy clown killing sprees. Anyhow, I have some houses, too. Well, technically they're not mine until I come of age or Mom is declared legally dead, whichever comes first. It's complicated."

"Complicated…" Yukie sipped her tea. "I have a complication of my own. Do you recall how my flight to Nevada was delayed? The reason was not the airplane. Ra's Al Ghul had it delayed that he might speak to me."

"He renewed his job offer, didn't he?" Slade asked, unsurprised.

"Yes," she said, and she _was _surprised. "How did you know?"

"I overheard him asking you the night we met," he replied. "I also heard your answer. What does he want you to do for him, and what did you say?"

"I didn't ask. I told him I hadn't had a vacation in twelve years and wasn't prepared to commit to anything at the moment," Yukie remembered. "He said he would give me six months before he got in contact with me again. Ra's never told me what the job actually was, but on thinking it over, I believe—."

She paused.

"What?" Rose bounced a little impatiently.

"I think he wants to hire me as a nanny for his grandson. He spoke about how the boy's mother, his daughter Talia, had made unwise choices concerning him."

Rose hooted with laughter. "He has a grandson? You're kidding! Oh, wait until I tell—." She quieted down when she caught a glimpse of her father's expression.

"That's far from ridiculous," he said, his brow furrowing deeply and his mouth taking on a thoughtful frown. "That's probably exactly what he wants. I know he has hundreds of people willing to kill for him or die for him at a word, but not many anyone would trust to take care of a house pet, let alone his successor. You're loyal, you're reliable, you have good judgment, and you're willing to commit to a long-term project and do whatever it takes. More than that, you would support raising the boy to be an assassin, yet you aren't vicious. He already knew you weren't bribable. Then he would have had you investigated."

Rose had gone serious. "What are you going to do? Are you going to take him up on it, if he asks?"

"I will certainly meet with him and hear him out, it's only polite. I don't know if that _is_ what he wants. I would prefer not to take such a position—especially if it meant living under the same roof as Talia Al Ghul, and doubly so if he has made it clear he thinks me fit to raise him, and her unfit." Yukie took a rice cracker and nibbled at it. "I will turn it down tactfully and give no offense. Unless there is a cogent reason to. Is there any enmity between you?"

"Not right now, there isn't." Slade said. "Why didn't you tell me he waylaid your flight?"

"If I told you about every encounter I have, or every time someone tries to kill me or have me killed, and you told me the same, we would hardly ever talk about anything else," she replied. "Gotham is a dangerous area even when one is not on the margins of the costumed adventurer life. I have never run into a situation I could not handle, and I personally have no enemies, and I am no one's enemy—other, perhaps, than my immediate family. Ra's did not threaten me or you. All he wanted was to talk."

He nodded in agreement, but he did so slowly. "Going forward, tell me about these things. Even if they're minor."

"I will," she promised. "Now, which of these houses of yours are in an area with cool summers and law-abiding citizens?"

"Would you be surprised to learn I have one in the Tahoe area?" he asked.

"Not really. Your hair was still a little damp from a shower when you picked me up at the airport." He hadn't taken any pictures of it, but the architectural firm which built it had a feature about it on their website, so they looked at it and discussed it. By asking tangential questions, she learned he had never lived there with Adeline, which was an important consideration to her, if not to him. She might marry the woman's husband and raise her daughter, but she would not live in her house, sleep in her bed, or wear her jewelry.

It was a house which practically erased the difference between indoors and outside, which she loved, and there was nothing vulgar or fussy about it, which was even better. It even had a onsen style tub. How strange and wonderful it was, to look at it and think: _that is where we will live. My family and I_.

Who could say she had not found the answers she was seeking after all? By returning to Japan, she had learned her family was not as she remembered them, and the difference was greater than twenty years could account for. The ex-husband she loathed was a shrunken, pathetic little man afraid of nearly everything and everyone. Her parents were not implacable deities, but rather vulgar and incurably racist, sexist, classist snobs. The little brother who imperiously ordered her to leave the house when his friends came over, so she could not embarrass him, was a sweating, nervous failure slaving away in middle management. All these tendencies had been there all along, only she had been so intimidated by them that she had not seen it.

What was more, it was clear she was not as they remembered her. The way their eyes bugged when she disagreed with them and said so, without yielding or cowering! They had no power over her anymore. She was free.

Free in so many ways, too. She could live with Slade and not feel the turbid filthy waters close over her head. Oh, sometimes she felt crowded by their presence and needed to be alone, but going for a walk or to a day spa by herself had fixed that. It was all right—_everything_ was all right—and every day that everything was all right meant a new milestone.

_May I never want to be happier than this_.

* * *

A/N: This is not the end. It is not near the end. Lots of things have yet to happen. The title of the chapter is taken from a painting by Robert Motherwell which belongs to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

My thanks as always to Swordstitcher and to my guest. Love ya!


	40. Yukie, Kitaro: Back In The Village

A/N: I don't normally put these both at the beginning and the end, but circumstances call for it. Chapters 31-36 are now the tale of Gar being found by Kitaro, meeting up with Rose, and going to Nerima where the ghosts are. Chapter 37 is now Slade in Okinawa, 38 is Rose: Cherishing Girls Village, and 39 is Yukie: The Reconciliation Elegy. That's the order in which they actually happened.

* * *

The museum room, small though it was, yielded a lot of information about 'Cherishing Girls Village'. It was not a tourist destination, but it did attract visitors for reasons unrelated to archaeology. Home to a number of traditional crafters and artisans, it boasted two or three pottery makers, someone who made handmade paper, an award-winning sake brewer of the sort Isamu used to be, and even a swordsmith. The inhabitants still supplemented their diet with wild fruits, vegetables and mushrooms from the mountainside, and the ecology was nearly pristine.

"Hey, this article says the tales of the Yuki-Onna may have originated here because of the mikos." Rose said, "because they were weather priestesses. Something like that."

Yukie looked up from the album of photographs. "Everything must start somewhere," she said. "Somehow I would find that…unsatisfactory, that the anthropomorphic personification of snow was no more than a human legend."

"Me, too. Hey, does your family come from around here or something? Because these people in the 'Annual Village Reunion' album—they all look like they could be your cousins."

"Really?" Rose was not the sort of person who thought all Asians looked alike, so Yukie crossed the room to glance through the photos herself.

"Yeah—see?" Rose pointed to a page. "You're kind of paler—heck, you're whiter than a lot of Caucasians—but the way your face is kind of diamond-oval shaped, with that short space between your nose and mouth, that's the same. And most of them are taller than the average Japanese person, too. Like you."

"I'm not sure I see it," Yukie leafed through the album. "There are two basic face-shapes, they say—round, or badger, and triangular, or fox. I have a fox face, which is considered more aesthetically pleasing, but badger faces are cuter." Yet she paused, because in the older women, she saw echoes of her grandmother's face. This was Aomori prefecture, and her grandmother had told Ra's Al Ghul she came from Shiga—but who knew if she had told him the truth? Perhaps this was where she was really from.

"Yukie," Slade called to her from the curtained off alcove toward the back of the room. "Come here a moment. There's something here I'd like your help interpreting." He sounded amused.

"Yes?" she asked, entering the space. "Oh! Oh…my." She suppressed a giggle.

"Exactly," he said. Behind the curtain was a collection of what might be called any number of things, _shunga_, marital aids, smut, or erotica.

"Well, everything here is meant to instruct couples on how to have daughters," she said, lowering her voice. "What position to use, when to do it, what to eat or drink, what prayers to say. There are a lot of factors, including the day of the month and the mother's lunar age at the time of conception. Apparently the best position is reverse cowgirl, done fast and hard. Is that how you made Rose?"

"Not that I recall," he frowned in thought. "What I wanted to ask about is—why is everyone in these woodcuts fully clothed except for the working parts? It sure as hell isn't for modesty's sake."

"Not _everyone_," she pointed out. "See? He's naked, because she…surprised him on the way to or from the bath. But the answer is, everybody has a body, but not necessarily one that looks good naked. My grandmother had a book of these. I found it on her shelf when I was…oh, about twelve. It was very instructive for a young girl, but I didn't realize that the men's working parts were, ah, enlarged to show detail."

"I did notice the detail," he said. "So when you and—?"

"Ryuuji was his name," she said. "I thought he was undersized. I didn't say anything about it, of course. Even at fifteen, I understood there were certain things one should not say."

"Fifteen," he frowned thoughtfully again. "That's right, you told me about it before. It's difficult to imagine that you…were a year younger then than Rose is now. In comparison, she still seems a child. Do you think she—?" he let it trail off.

"I don't believe she has, yet," Yukie told him, "but she is thinking about it."

"Thinking is allowed," he said. "It's acting on it that's the problem."

"If it helps, she is just as appalled at the idea that you have a sex life. She would much prefer to pretend that all you and I use our futons for is sleep."

"Speaking of which—why did _you _think your grandmother had such an _instructive_ book?" he asked.

"She had a lot of old and valuable things. The copy she had was an original, at least a hundred and fifty years old. I never asked her about it, any more than I asked her where she got her incense burners or her tea ware," Yukie replied. "She was old, so she owned old things. I did not question that. I wish I had asked, now…but she may not have told me the truth, or if she did, I might not have believed it."

"Why? Do you think it was stolen goods or something?" Slade asked. "She'd have been a young woman during World War Two. Plenty of things happen in a war."

"Not that so much…you see, she may have gotten them when they were new."

"Is this somehow connected to the fact that you look at least ten years younger than your younger sister?" he asked. At her look of surprise, he smiled. "Don't think I didn't notice, or think about what that meant. I know any number of people who don't look their real age, and one of them I face in the mirror every day, thanks to the serum. I don't know how long I will live. It could be a very long time. I'm potentially immortal, they tell me—if I don't take risks."

"If you didn't take risks, you wouldn't be you," she said, automatically.

His lips quirked at that, but rather than comment on it, he went on to say, "So, no, I'm not that shocked. It may mean you won't look at yourself aging and resent me for not getting older, or it may mean we have that much longer to get sick of each other. Let's revisit the topic in twenty years."

"What are you two whispering about in here?" Rose asked, suddenly throwing back the curtain. She froze for a moment as she took in the display before her face flared red. "Eeeewww!"

The rest of the afternoon passed by pleasantly and quietly, and soon enough, it was dinner time. Shabu-shabu was a traditional winter dish, like yakiniku only with a soup pot instead of a grill.

"I'm thinking, _seriously_ thinking, about changing my alias and my armor," Rose said, as she plucked a strip of meat out of the boiling pot.

"What's wrong with 'Ravager' and your current armor?" her father asked, raising an eyebrow.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with them, but there's nothing about them that's uniquely mine, either. As far as the armor goes, I'm thinking a slightly lighter color, like cobalt or blued steel. Nothing stupid—_definitely_ not armored lingerie and _no_ cape. There's some new lightweight micro-mail meshes that have scales so small they're practically granular—and they'll stop even the new armor piercing rounds. For the contrast, I'd go with platinum. Not particolored like yours, more like piping at the seams and edges.

"For a new alias—well, I thought maybe 'Nyghtblade' or 'Nyghtingale'," she popped the bite into her mouth and chewed. "Night spelled with a 'Y' instead of an 'I', and 'Nyghtingale' because, as you recall, I walked the nightingale floor at Nijo Castle last month _without_ making it sing."

"Oh, I remember. You impressed us with that little feat. I prefer 'Nyghtblade' but there was some kid who called himself 'Nightblade', with an 'I' He was only around for about fifteen minutes, though." her father commented. " I don't believe there's ever been a 'Nyghtingale'."

"Right! I'd be the first and original," Rose said. "Hey, Yukie? How about you?"

"About me?" Yukie pointed at herself with her chopsticks. "I—never considered it, beyond the Jian Wu competition."

"You ought to. I don't see you needing them often, but you never know. There might be an emergency." Rose pointed out.

"Hmmm," she thought for a moment. "I am told," she glanced at Slade meaningfully, "that calling one's self 'Yuki-Onna' when one's name is 'Yukie' misses the point."

Rose laughed. "You actually called yourself 'Yuki-Onna' for the match? You never told me that!"

"I suppose I didn't," Yukie said.

"You look very good in red," Slade offered. "I don't see you as the sort to wear excessively Asian themed armor. There are enough who do that already."

"Not red, I don't think," she said, slowly, sipping sake. "Winter colors. White, silver, brown-black. No icicles or snowflakes, however. A simple tunic over leggings, perhaps with a cowl which can become a hood. Something futuristic by way of the 1960s, perhaps by Watanabe Junya," Yukie looked up and laughed. "As if I would ever need such a thing!"

"Never say never," Slade returned.

"But you'd still need a name," Rose said. "What about….Lady Snowblood?"

"_Lady Snowblood_? When did you see that movie?" Yukie asked.

"I haven't," Rose admitted. "But I read it was a major inspiration for the first _Kill Bill_."

"I didn't care for that movie," Yukie said dismissively. "Too noisy and overblown. But Lady Snowblood is a very good film, a classic of the genre."

"If you take a name with 'Lady' in front of it, you'll have to kill someone to keep it. The League of Assassins claim the right to bestow that title," Slade informed them. "They'll send someone to kill you."

"What, really?" his daughter asked. "I never heard of that before."

"If it was one of the Justice League bunch, they might not. But someone associated with me—someone known to them—yes, they would," he said. "Snowblood, though—that would suit Yukie."

"Snowblade, perhaps," Yukie replied, "since blades are my weapon of choice."

"Well, if_ you_ were to go with 'Snowblade', then I would _definitely_ go with Nyghtingale," Rose said.

Yukie shook her head and smiled at them. "Are you determined to draw me into this, whether I like it or not? Let us talk of something else. I am pleasantly surprised by Cherishing Girls Village. It is a very interesting place, and I wish the weather was not so bad and we had a chance to explore it properly."

An unfamiliar phone rang, and the two women looked around, puzzled. Deathstroke, however, unfolded his legs and crossed the room to his suitcase. "A business phone," he explained, "I've kept it turned off, but today I turned down an offer…" he looked at the screen, "…and they've doubled the fee. Hmm."

"Why did you reject the offer initially?" Yukie inquired.

"It's both out of the way and likely to take a lot of time," he replied. "A week, perhaps longer, and in…a country north of here, let's say. It would mean leaving the two of you on your own. But—what would you say to having that time to explore the village? We'd still have the week at the ski resort, but after that, I'd be away for—ten days. Yes. I could do it and be back in ten days, for certain."

"Oh, but Dad…," Rose began.

"I would be glad to spend time with Rose, although it means compounding her truancy," she said, giving the girl a teasing smile. "As far as what the work itself entails, I trust your judgment. But is the fee truly worth the time, with the weather as foul as it is?" Yukie wondered.

"Doubled, it's enough to buy that house on Lake Tahoe all over again and furnish it, too," he told her. "It's worth it."

"If you truly did not want to do it, you would not tell us about it now," she reasoned. "Rose, reconcile yourself to another week or so in Japan."

"Oh, I'm reconciled," Rose said.

Outside in the snow, insulated by his thick, winter-white fur, Kitaro cozied in next to the rocks warmed by the hot spring, satisfied by what he had overheard. That the family was going to Hakkoda of their own accord was good, and since the Call was drawing Lady Snowblood there already, not unexpected. Having another week to ten days to make sure she got to where she was supposed to go, alone, was a bonus, and one less person around (the scariest one at that!) was an unbelievable stroke of luck.

Yah, it was going his way. He could practically feel that fifth tail already…

* * *

A/N: A nightingale floor is either an amusing novelty or a security measure, depending on how paranoid you are. It's a hardwood floor with metal strips around the nails which squeak or sing when the boards are stepped on.

So—a few days ago I wrote and posted a one shot specifically set in the Arrow universe, called Everything Yes, about Slade and Shado, the young woman whose death caused the rift between Slade and Oliver. It is set in a completely different universe. If that intrigues you, feel free to check it out!

The chapters are now in the correct order. Okinawa and what comes after belonged after the trip into Nerima, and now they are there.

Thank you, Swordstitcher, for your continuing support. May the plot bunnies plague your pillow.


	41. Rose: Hakkoda-san

Their hostess at the ryokan was quite pleased to learn they were coming back the next week. Rose was learning there were all sorts of nuances to the way people said yes, especially in Japan. Saying 'No' outright was nearly unthinkable and unspeakable both, so you had to interpret just what they meant when they said 'Yes'. She judged the innkeeper's reaction to be genuine—especially since Yukie made a sizeable cash deposit. Winter was not their busy season, and likely the extra income was most welcome.

The next day, the sky was as clear and blue as a morning glory in bloom, with hardly a wisp of a cloud anywhere. This meant the snow glare was ferocious. Luckily all three of them had ski goggles and sunglasses. Luckier still, the main road had been plowed, and after breakfast, they were on their way to Mount Hakkoda.

"There are a few mountains in Japan that, when you speak of them, you don't call them a mountain. Mount Fuji is one of them," Yukie said, in English. "It's written 'Fujiyama'," she wrote the kanji in the air with her finger, making the strokes for 'mountain', "but when you say it out loud, you speak of it as if it were a person. 'Fuji-san'.

"It ties in with Shinto, which is the old religion of Japan, much older than Buddhism. Shinto holds that everything living has a kami, which can mean a spirit, an essence, or a god. It varies in context. Quite a few things that are not technically living also have kami. Fuji-san is one of them, and Hakkoda-san is another. You'll see why. It's definitely a place with personality. If there is any place in Japan that still has a yuki-onna, she will be living here. It's practically her natural habitat."

"Really? Why?" Rose asked.

"Hakkoda-san isn't simply one of the snowiest places in Japan, it's one of the snowiest places on Earth. First off, it isn't actually a single mountain—it's an entire range, with about twenty peaks and several wet lands. What with the mountains rising up from the ocean as they do, and the arctic winds coming down from the north, pulling up moisture as they go—by the time the air currents reach here, they are primed to drop all of that water in the form of snow. What we saw yesterday was not a major event. It was comparatively mild. Where better to find a yuki-onna than a place with so much snow? But there is more. A yuki-onna is not just the kami of snow. She is a force of nature and an aspect of death. Specifically, freezing to death."

"Which explains why she's a beautiful woman," Slade commented. "When you're freezing to death, or very near to it, the pain goes away. The cold goes away. You start getting very tired, to the point where you just want to sit down and rest. It's one of the most peaceful, gentle deaths you can find. I speak from personal experience here-I've come closer to it than anyone alive."

"What? Where was that?" Rose turned to him.

"Antarctica, during one of those alien invasions. I crashed a spaceship here on purpose, set the engine core to melt down, and walked away."

"Was that the one where the aliens all had red discs on their heads, and no lips, just needle-teeth?" she asked.

"No, the one where they had tentacles on their faces," he replied.

Yukie shuddered. "The race that launched a thousand hentai jokes," she murmured. More loudly, she asked, "But how did you survive?"

"Thanagarians found me—Hawk-man's people. But we're off topic. Hakkoda-san. Wasn't there some great military blunder that happened there?"

"Yes, there was, and it involved dozens of men freezing to death, which is the connection to the yuki-onna." Yukie replied, and paused. "I liked what you said about death by freezing being a beautiful woman because it is so gentle and peaceful. It was most poetic."

He made a small scoffing sound, but he looked a little bit pleased, too. "On with the story."

"In 1902, Hakkoda–san was the site of the worst mountaineering disaster in modern history. On January 23rd, a unit of two hundred and ten men from the Imperial Army's Eighth Division set out from Aomori as part of a training exercise to see how well they could deal with extreme weather conditions in case Russia shelled the coastline. The first day was supposed to be an easy march of only twelve miles, only as far as the Tashiro Hot Springs."

"Sounds like a nice day's outing for a bunch of old ladies," Slade observed. "Where did it go wrong?"

"Almost everywhere. To begin with, they were not issued cold-weather gear, because how could the general command tell how well they handled extreme weather when they were all bundled up? None of the commanders involved had any experience living or working in the extreme cold. The men were issued standard general army uniforms, which were thin cotton." Yukie replied. "Nor were they given any training in survival or mountaineering."

"What sorts of idiotic sons-of-bitc—never mind. I encountered mentality often enough like that when I was in the Army. What went wrong next?" asked the ex-soldier.

"There was a Major in charge of overseeing the exercise, but the planning was the responsibility of a Captain. He seems to have been capable, experienced, and qualified, and he knew how arduous the trek was likely to be. Unfortunately, the Major was very likely promoted to his post because of his noble and honorable lineage rather than his experience and merit. All might still have been well, had the Major not decided at the last moment to join the march."

"I can see this isn't going anywhere good," Rose commented.

Yukie nodded, "It is not. None of the men, privates or officers, came from the mountains, and none of them knew how very quickly and drastically the weather could change. The locals did, and knew from past experience that the conditions were ripe for a storm much worse than the one we saw yesterday. They pleaded with the commanding officers not to go, or at the very least, to take a local guide, but the Major arrogantly ignored them."

Slade snorted. "Go on."

"The weather held until about four in the afternoon. At that time, they were about two and a half miles from their goal, the hot springs. They could have reached it within an hour—if the weather had held. It did not. It is not an exaggeration to say that the blizzard which ensued has never been equaled, let alone surpassed, in Japan's recorded history. Within an hour, they could no longer see the path, and by dark, they were struggling through waist deep snow, while the temperature plunged to forty-one degrees below zero. This is a recorded fact. It is also the lowest temperature ever reached in all of Japan."

Rose whistled.

"There were no radios, no walkie-talkies, no trucks, no way of getting a message to the base—this was 1902, remember. The men had rations, but they could not eat them, because they were frozen solid. It was as much as they could do to break them with their bayonets, and suck on the few fragments they could chip off. They had the means to build a fire, matches and such, but because of the high winds and the intensity of the snow, they couldn't keep one lit. When they had to relieve themselves, they faced a choice between unbuttoning their pants, and getting such terrible frostbite on their hands that they couldn't button themselves up again, or messing themselves and having their wastes freeze the cloth to their skin. The Captain ordered them to dig trenches in the snow and huddle together to conserve what body heat they had, and in that manner, wait out the storm as best they could."

"Probably the smartest thing they could do under the circumstances," Slade said.

"They could have done like the Emperor Penguins do in Antarctica," Rose offered. "They huddle together in a group and keep moving while they rotate within the group so everybody takes turns being on the inside where it's warmest. We watched _The March of the Penguins_ in Biology."

"That might have worked," Yukie said. "So might the trenches, too."

"What did the Major do?" Slade asked with the gloomy relish of a man who often had to follow the orders of men less intelligent and experienced than he was.

"At about two in the morning, he decided he had had enough, and ordered them to return to base. Even without white-out conditions, that would have been folly, but with them—Yet the Captain obeyed, and for several hours, led the way. Then the Major relieved him of duty and promptly set off in entirely the wrong direction." Yukie told them.

"Inbred _asshole_," Rose swore, "I hope he died."

"He did. By daybreak, more than forty men were missing, presumed dead, the storm was not nearly over, and the temperature was no warmer. Whether it was frostbite, exhaustion, a yuki-onna leading them astray, or volcanic gasses—the region is a dormant volcanic range as well, with natural vents dotting the area through which gasses escape. In sheltered areas, those gasses can pool up to the point where they cause disorientation and dizziness in any one who blunders into them—and at very high concentrations, they can kill."

"….And _this_ is where you're taking us to go skiing?" Rose asked, cynically.

"It has amazing powder, challenging trails and runs, and great natural beauty. Just don't wander out of the marked areas," Yukie told her. "I cannot stress that enough. _Do not_ step out of the marked boundaries. People have gotten lost only a few feet away from safety.

"Whatever the reason, the men began to hallucinate and lose their minds. They saw stands of trees as rescue teams, and ran to them. Some took off their clothes and tried to swim back, believing the snow was water. By day three, all pretense of command had disintegrated.

"They missed the expected return date, which was January 24th, but not until January 26th did the regimental headquarters at Aomori send out a search party of sixty men. On January 27th, they found the first survivor, Corporal Goto, who was standing upright, buried in the snow. Once he told them what happened, the rescue operation began in earnest, with tens of thousands of soldiers and locals desperately combing Hakkoda-san in search of survivors. Out of two hundred and ten men, they found only seventeen alive, six of whom subsequently died of their injuries. Eight of the remaining eleven had to have amputations. Most had multiple amputations. The last living man was found on February 2nd, but the last body was not recovered until May 28th.

"That is the tale of the Hakkoda Death March. Perhaps there was a yuki-onna involved, but really, given the sheer stupidity shown by those in command of those unfortunate men, it can hardly be said to be her fault. Of course the mountains are haunted now—people see and hear the soldiers in the dead of night, and especially in the dead of winter. But they're not dangerous in and of themselves—as long as you don't wander off the trails."

* * *

A/N: The Hakkoda Mountains Incident is indeed a historical fact. There is a documentary and a film as well as several books written about it, and a Death March Museum on the site. I discovered this information when I was looking for a place to set the climax of this story. Nobody could make this stuff up.

Many thanks to my Guest-I see Rose's desire to shed the Ravager name and armor as an important step in defining who she's growing into. It was used not only by Grant, but by her father's half-brother and enemy Wade, so it has both positive and negative connotations.

And Swordstitcher-I am glad I got you to giggle. I will try to do so on all possible occasions.


	42. Slade: Progress

Most of the time one spends downhill skiing or snowboarding is not actually spent skiing or snowboarding. It's spent getting back up hill or waiting to get back up hill, which leaves people with a lot of time to talk. That week at the Mount Hakkoda Ski Resort, there was plenty to talk about—namely, the family of three who arrived a day late but proceeded to make up for lost time. They were all remarkably athletic—the man preferring skis, the teenage girl, snowboards, and the woman equally at home on either—and good-looking too, even though the man was scarred and missing one eye.

There was a great deal of speculation about who they were, exactly. Some speculated that the girl was an Olympic hopeful—she was the right age to be training up for the Games. The man and girl were American, and she was very obviously his daughter, while the woman was Japanese, or Japanese-American at any rate. Was she the girl's mother, or was she her trainer? Of the three, the woman was the most at home on the slopes and in the snow, so that was credible, although no one knew of her. Not all professionals were well known. She and the man were a couple, that was clear, and there were no rings on the hands of either one, so it probably wasn't anything official.

However, at least _two_ people staying at the lodge wanted that to change before the end of their stay…

"So, it's tonight, right?" Rose asked him anxiously. "You're asking her tonight?"

"Yes, since we're here for three more days. That way I'm not running out first thing in the morning as if I thought better of it," Slade told her.

"And you've got the ring and everything?" his daughter questioned.

"Yes," He patted the box through his pocket. Rose had been of great help in choosing an engagement ring, as she had artfully found out Yukie's ring size while shopping for one for herself, and then, on another day, sussed her out as to what style and setting she liked best. It remained to be seen how transparent or how successful she had been.

"Can I see it again?"

He regarded his offspring with some concern. "Why? What's gotten into you?"

"Well, you said she turned you down the first time. What's to stop that from happening again?"

"That was months ago, before the trip and before she knew I was serious. Now we're making plans as to where we'll live. This is simply a formality," he injected reassurance into his voice.

Rose was having none of that. "Yes, but it's an_ important_ formality! And you're not even making it romantic or special or anything!"

He chuckled. "Are you under the impression Yukie will be heartbroken if there isn't a string quartet and a horse-drawn carriage on hand?"

"No, but—."

"Then what is really troubling you? Out with it." He crossed his arms and waited.

"It's just—I don't know—We've all been so happy, even you and me, these past weeks. It seems like something's got to go wrong somewhere. I don't ever remember being this happy—just like being happy–everyday-happy, not birthdays-and Christmas-happy, _that's_ different. It's like we're really a family now, for the first time, ever."

He was silent a moment. "C'mere, Rosie," he said, and opened his arms. She went into them and he hugged her. She hugged back. "I know I've made mistakes as a father, a lot of them. I'll probably make more before you're out on your own. A lot of it comes from the fact that until I joined the Army, there wasn't anything reliable in my life. No structure, no rules, just—well, as bad as I was as a father, you still got a better one than the one I did."

She looked up into his face. "You've never said _anything_ about your family before. Ever. Mom didn't even know anything about them, except that she was a homemaker and he was a school teacher."

"Those were lies," he confessed. Usually there was a part of him that stood back and watched while he interacted, but not now. This was a part of him he had never exposed, not to his wife, not to Wintergreen, not to son or friend or brother. Not even to Yukie, but with Yukie, there was never a need to. "Your mother was high-class, from this fancy rich family. I didn't tell her when I should have, and then I couldn't. Even if she didn't care about my background, the fact that I lied would be bad enough."

"Then—what _is_ the truth?" Rose asked, her eyes big and dark with worry.

"It's hard for me to talk about. My mother died of pneumonia when I was five. My father was a small-time con artist who lost more gambling than he made grifting. He ditched me when I was twelve. For four years I was in the system, going from group home to foster family, and when I was sixteen, I said 'To hell with that!' ran away, lied about my age, and enlisted in the Army. I was scrawny and just barely tall enough, but I did not look my age, not after the life I'd had. No, I did not. But in the Army I thrived—I was the best damn recruit they ever had—and in a year I'd put on six inches and thirty pounds. It was the first time I'd ever always had enough to eat, too."

His daughter made a small, stricken sound.

"So when I had a family of my own, I had no idea how to be a father. Not a good one, anyway. So I treated my kids like you were recruits, because that was the best way I knew how. Only you weren't and it wasn't the best way. For that, I'm sorry."

She was still and quiet. "Is this the truth? Really the truth?"

"Yes. Leaving out a lot of details, though. It's more than I've ever told anyone. Not even Yukie."

"I'm…glad you told me. I think you should tell her too, sometime. With her screwed-up family, I _know_ she'll understand. I wish you hadn't waited two years to tell me about her, though."

"I think if I'd moved faster, it would have spooked her. Between her family and her husband, she was as damaged as either of us."

"Or it might have been okay, and we would have gotten here sooner," she pointed out, wistfully.

"We'll never know. We're here now, though." he said.

"Yeah, we are," She gave him another quick hug. "Okay, Dad. I think I can wait and not freak out now. Go ask Yukie to marry you." She squared her shoulders and pointed in the direction of their room.

He snapped her a salute. "Yes, Ma'am. Commander, Ma'am!", and did an about face, to make her laugh.

She did. "Right, Dad. And Dad—I love you."

"I love you too, Rose."

Yukie had booked them traditional Japanese rooms with futons. She herself had gone ahead to change out of her ski clothes and get ready for dinner. The window in their room was wide open, showcasing the mountainous vista, and anyone other than she would have been shivering with cold. She, however, was standing in front of it while wearing only a pale blue camisole and panties, perfectly comfortable. She had a pensive, melancholy expression on her face as he saw it in profile.

"It gets so hot in here, especially at night," she explained. "You can close it if you're cold."

"I'm fine," he said. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Remembering Kayako, and things that did not happen," Yukie turned.

"She did try to kill you. She even succeeded for a moment," he reminded her.

"Yet I miss her, sometimes very acutely. They say many people, especially among costumed adventurers, have alternative life memories, sometimes of several lives, since what they call the Crisis," she said. "These must be mine, that I had a best friend from earliest childhood, but her husband murdered her and her son before we ever met. But that's something I will live with. Where's Rose?"

"She's found a WI-FI spot and is messaging her friends. She'll be a while." Cellphone and internet coverage were proving to be somewhat variable in the resort area.

"Ah," Yukie said, and her smile said her mood had changed like the Hakkoda area weather. She came over to him and pulled his shirt out of his pants, running her hands up his naked back. "Then let's take advantage of this extra degree of privacy."

Sometime later:

"Where are my snow goggles?" he squinted at her in fun, "Your afterglow's too bright."

She laughed. "Take it as a tribute to your skills, not to mention the instrument."

"But which one of us is the instrument? From my point of view, it was a duet. I was wondering, though-."

"Yes?"

"If you still think of marriage as a slow, lingering death." he finished.

She tipped her head to the side a little, frowning in thought. "Yes and no. I now think a great deal depends on who one's spouse might be."

"Really?"

"Yes. Even now, knowing how to handle Isamu, I cannot imagine marriage to him or someone like him as anything but a long, long wait for death to release one or the other of us. However, if I were married to you, I am sure it would mean you would be gone half the time, and having no idea where you were, what you were doing, or when you would be back." Her words might lead one to think that was a negative, but her tone of voice said otherwise.

"Probably, but you could always turn on the news to find out-and I would always come home." he offered.

"Also, I would always have to watch for people out to take me hostage or kill me. However, since I lived in Gotham for ten years before we met, that will mean little or no change in daily life. It will simply be less random." Her tone was lighthearted, as though she were debating the merits of one breed of pet over another.

"There are bullet-proof, bomb-proof safe rooms in every house I own," he informed her. "I supervise the construction."

She nodded. "And then there is Rose, who has yet to be launched into the world as a self-sufficient adult, not to mention the impending drama when she has her first serious relationship. In addition to which, there is your son Joseph, who she tells me is alive in a special care facility. I anticipate that there may be other people from your past or presumably deceased relatives who will turn up without warning, bringing with them both emotional and physical violence."

"When you put it that way, it sounds terrible," he agreed.

"Lastly there is you yourself. Your prodigious appetite, nearly boundless stamina, you are _not '_enlarged to show detail', you're simply large-but-playfulness aside," her mood shifted again. "My grandmother-if I _am_ like her-she did not bear her first child until she was fifty. That is a little over five years from now. If I can have a child then, bodily or by some other means, would you welcome it?" Her voice was small, tentative.

"Genetic counseling," he said. "Somebody must be doing it for metas and specials by now. If it existed back in the day, if we knew what it meant, Addie and I might not have had children. I'm a meta, Addie was a carrier-you know how recessive genes work. Any child we had, had a fifty-fifty chance of being a meta or a mutant. We had three, one normal, one mutant, one meta. I know you're not a meta or a carrier, but I remember your genetic status from that night we met. 'Not Nonhuman.' You've got something besides pure human in your DNA, in proportions that showed up on a fast-and-dirty field test. Have you any idea what it is?"

She sat up, looking at him with surprise. "I thought 'Not Nonhuman' simply meant I was normal."

"You didn't know? 'Not Nonhuman' means you're mostly human but with some exotic genes mixed in, something the test couldn't ID. A field test would only ID the commonest variants. Freeze never ran an analysis of your genes?" he asked.

"He did, but that was ten years before, and he was looking for genetic diseases. Have the tests changed a great deal since then?" she asked.

"They identify new things all the time, so the tests keep evolving. Look, I'm not dead set against adding to the family-but mixing meta genes with exotics could make for another Joey, or worse. Better to find out what you are first, and then make decisions. Remember, too, that any child will also be in danger of being abducted or killed-and that I haven't the best track record as a father."

"You say that, but the way you've been parenting Rose says otherwise." Yukie looked at him wisely.

"That's with you here to keep the peace. You're very good at that, you know." he pointed out. "In a lot of different ways."

"I'm glad," she smiled. "In any case, I had rather wait a few years, until Rose is well into college. She'll be grown so soon."

"Agreed. So-It's official, then? You will marry me?"

"Yes, I will marry you," she said, settling down beside him again.

"Good," he reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out the box. "Because returning _this_ would be very inconvenient." Flipping the lid open, he held it out to her.

"Oh," she said. "Oh-how perfect." It was a diamond solitaire, of course. It was rather modest, only a half-carat, much smaller than Addie's two carat sparkler, but Rose had reported that Yukie thought large stones were vulgar, and rose-cut, an antique style. However, it was very fine in terms of color and clarity. The setting had nothing to snag or get caught on things, and it was eighteen karat gold, strong enough to take a few knocks and not get damaged.

Her eyes sparkled like the diamond, tears forming. "I'm so happy," she said. "It's perilous. being this happy."

"Now you sound like Rose," he chided her. "And speaking of whom, we ought to get ready for dinner before she comes looking for us..."

* * *

A/N: Ta-dah! The bad weather is sure helping my out-put. There really ought to be a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference in here somewhere, considering that it's chapter 42, but I couldn't think of one. Oh, well.

Thank you, SwordStitcher! As ever.


	43. Tim: Elementary

Perhaps in revenge for the time he called her in the middle of what was the night for her, Rose called Robin at an equally awful hour to tell him: "Hey, Rob, guess what?"

"Uh—," he began.

"My dad doesn't have a girlfriend anymore." She paused a moment, "He has a fiancée!"

"Um—that's—Congratulations?"

"Yes!" she practically sang. Well, maybe she was just so happy she had to share or burst. "They're going to get married when we get back to the States. It won't be anything fancy. They've both been married before, with the dresses and dress uniforms and receptions, and it didn't last, so since we're going to be in Nevada anyway, they'll probably just stop in Vegas. Yukie says the whole point in getting married isn't having a wedding, it's _being_ married. Which they are already anyway, except for the legal part, so—Robin, are you still there?"

"Yeah. Your dad is getting married. Which is…great! Uh—why are you going to be in Nevada? When are you going to be in Nevada? I thought you were coming back in—um, what day is it?"

"Oh, it's been pushed back again, another ten days or so. Two weeks, say. Yeah, I'm going to have to make up the semester, but it has completely been worth it. Dad has a house in Nevada, but Yukie has to get her stuff from Gotham City—anyway, I'm sending you some pictures from Hakkoda-san—I mean, from the Mount Hakkoda ski resort. It's the weirdest place, with the snow monsters and the ghosts, but it has the_ sweetest_ powder that doesn't come on a donut—."

"Snow monsters?" Robin asked.

"Oh, they're not _really_ monsters. We _still _haven't seen any yokai. They're just fir trees covered in ice and snow off the Siberian jet stream, but they look like they're going to come to life and attack any moment. They call them Juhyo."

"Ghosts," he stated.

"Yeah. They're the spirits of soldiers who died in 1902. Japan is like the most haunted country in the _world. _Don't worry, they're not dangerous, as long as you stay in the safe zones," Rose assured him.

"Like staying out of Nerima?" he asked.

"Nothing like Nerima," she said. "These guys aren't angry, they're just lost. Anyway, I'm sending them now—," A moment later, he saw that he'd received some photo messages. "There! I've got to go. Talk to you later!"

"Bye," he said. He looked at the time. It was not quite five, but he knew he wasn't going to go back to sleep, so he took a shower instead, taking his time before going down to the Titan Tower's kitchen.

Raven was already there, looking down into a mug of something steaming. "Morning," she greeted him.

"Good morning," he said in return.

"There's nothing much good about it," she said, dourly. "All the signs point to there being a new Elemental soon."

Cyborg came in just in time to catch the last part of that. "Yeah, it seems like they just keep adding new ones to the table," he said, "but I say, if you have to make it in a lab and it breaks down faster than a Land Rover Discovery 4, it's not a real element."

"Uh—what are you talking about?" Raven asked.

"The Periodic Table. You know, iron, oxygen, arsenic—. What are_ you_ talking about?"

"Arsenic!" Starfire burbled. "I love arsenic, and I haven't tasted it since I came to Earth. It's so tasty and such a pretty green. Plus, if you have acne, it clears it right up! You know, I bet it would go great on popcorn. Where does one go to buy it here? They never seem to have it in the grocery store."

It seemed like everybody was awake early that morning. "Arsenic is poisonous to humans," he told Kory. "Cy, I think Raven means people like Firestorm or Swamp Thing. People who embody Fire or Earth, things like that."

"Oh, right," Cyborg said, and started rooting around in the refrigerator. "But doesn't that mean one of the old ones has to retire or something?"

"Usually," the half-demoness said, "but the thing is, Elementals aren't really meant to be Elementals longer than a human lifetime. The old Elemental, in this case, has been the Elemental for over a thousand years. That means he, she or it is going to be insanely powerful, insanely dangerous, and insanely—insane. Maybe I could have put that last one better, but that's how it is. After a thousand years, there's not going to be much human left to them. They're probably not going to want to give up the power, and if they're the only Elemental of their kind, they can't be killed. It won't be a nice, peaceful transition, or I wouldn't be getting the ripple effect off of it."

"Okay, it sounds like the sort of thing we ought to look into, then," Robin said. "Which one is it?"

"The Snow Elemental. I know everybody knows about Earth, Air, Fire and Water, but Earth can be plant life, like Swamp Thing, stone, metal or even clay, like Clayface. Clayface is actually an Earth/Water Elemental. Snow is Air/Water. However—since it's been more than a thousand years, nobody knows who or where the old one is," Raven told them.

"Then maybe we could find the new one, and help whoever that is," Cy said, emerging from the depths of the refrigerator with eggs, bacon, sausage, and milk. "How do you know who it's going to be?"

"Usually it runs in families," Raven said, sipping her coffee. "but after more than a thousand years, there could be a lot of descendants, and it brings us back to the problem of not knowing who or where. Another clue is that for whatever reason, the person it's going to be has a really appropriate name. Like, Swamp Thing was Alec Holland. That combines 'Holly', a tree, with 'Land', for earth. It could be a first name, too, like Mera, Queen of Atlantis, who's the water Elemental. 'Mer' means 'Sea'."

"So the new Snow Elemental could be called something like Winters, Frost, Snowdon—," Robin reasoned.

"Or Crystal, Bianca, January, if it's a first name," Raven countered. "Also, there are a lot of other countries out there where they don't speak English and we wouldn't recognize the connection because we don't speak their language."

"What about the one who calls himself Freeze?" Starfire offered. "Would he not be the most likely? Or Captain Cold, Killer Frost—there are any number of others, are there not?"

"Oh, it won't be somebody with cold-based powers already," Raven dismissed the notion. "The elemental powers need a blank slate."

"Do I smell somebody cooking up animal flesh?" Beast Boy joined them. "It better not be anybody I know."

"You mean the one who's doing the cooking or the one who's being cooked?" Cyborg retorted. "Pull up a seat, Greenie. So, Raven, this new Elemental could be anybody, and the old Elemental could be anywhere, and when the moment comes—do they have to be in the same place?"

"I'm not sure. Sometimes yes. Sometimes the power just rips loose and finds the next one, wherever they are. I think this time it'll be yes. Face to face," she speculated. "The old one will be living somewhere cold."

"You're showing us a picture of a snowflake and telling us to find a match in the middle of a blizzard, that's what I'm hearing," Cyborg replied. "So—is the whole planet going to turn into an ice cube, or what?"

"Probably not the _whole_ planet," she said. "Just whatever hemisphere they're on."

"Oh," Robin interrupted, "speaking of somewhere cold, Rose sent me some pics from that ski resort she's at." He took out his phone and brought up the file.

"Rose is in a place which is very cold and snowy," Starfire pointed out, looking at the phone. "Do you think we should alert her to the imminent change in Elementals? It may be that she is nearby where it will happen."

"Nah. It's a big planet with a lot of cold places. What are the odds she's anywhere near it? Besides, she's on vacation, and she has other things to think about. Her father and his lady friend are getting married when they get back to the States." Robin said.

"So they're really getting married, Slade and his lady?" Cyborg asked. "Man, that just seems _wrong_ somehow. I mean, who else in the business do you know of whose relationship's lasted as long as two years and are still going strong?"

"Hawkman and Hawkgirl," Robin offered. "The Elongated Man and his wife—uh, wait, she died, didn't she? Superman and Lois Lane."

"Even giving you the Elongated Man, that's three out of how many? Three _hundred_ people? Anybody want to bet how long she's going to live?" Cyborg asked.

"That is unkind," Starfire scolded. "Just because Slade is not our friend does not mean we should wish harm upon his betrothed, especially since Rose is so fond of her."

"I don't want harm to come to her, Star, it's just that hanging around him is dangerous enough for somebody _with_ powers. She's a civilian. Does she really know what she's getting into?"

"She's not exactly a civilian," Robin put in, "She worked for Mr. Freeze for twelve years, and she's a martial artist. That's how they met, Rose said. Love at first blood."

"And don't forget, I actually met her," Garfield Logan put in. "I know how she reacts to threats. You don't want to be on the wrong end of her baseball bat. I wouldn't say she's the Mama Bear type, though. More like a Tiger Mother."

"What's the difference?" Raven asked, diverted.

"They'll both take your head off with one swipe of a paw," he said, "but you won't see or hear the tiger coming."

"But what is this that is menacing Rose?" Starfire burst out. She had been looking at the pictures on Robin's phone. "Snow monsters?!"

"Oh, those are just snow and ice covered trees," Robin said, looking at the picture of Rose. Her blue-tinted hair stood out in contrast against her bright pink jacket, and she was pretending to be terrified of the admittedly creepy looking snowy pillars around her. "They're called Juhyo. She's really having a good time over there."

"Not all the time," Raven said, "The other week she told me a middle aged businessman offered her the equivalent of a thousand dollars for the panties she was wearing, right then, right there, as is."

"Why would he wish to do that?" Starfire's brow creased. "Even if he wanted to own an identical garment, surely he would prefer it to be brand new."

"This one is an 'I'll tell you later,'" Raven patted her on the arm. "Hey, is this Slade's fiancée?" She pointed to the image of a smiling Japanese woman in an apple red ski jacket.

"Yes, that's Yukime Kuwano," Robin confirmed. "If she's ever in danger and we can help, I say we drop everything and do it. Not just for Rose, but in the interest of keeping Slade sane and stable. We _all _want that."

"You-key-may," Starfire repeated, drawing out the syllables. "That is an Earth name I have not encountered before. Has it a special meaning?"

"Sorry. Whatever it is, I don't know," he said. "I don't speak Japanese."

It was one of those things which turned out to be extremely obvious in retrospect. Working for Mr. Freeze, loving the winter and snow, being good at winter sports, being named 'Lady Snow', actually calling herself 'Yuki-Onna'—as Raven put it, much later, it was almost like a great big neon arrow sign was pointed right at the next Snow Elemental, blinking on and off day and night. But that was much, much later, and knowing might not have changed a thing.

* * *

A/N: Anybody out there? It's awful quiet on this side of the screen.


	44. Kitaro, Yukie: Faux Pas and Fox Paws

The problem with being a four-tailed kitsune was that people—which is to say, yokai—called you 'Dead Ass' or similar charming nicknames a lot, as the word for four and the word for death sounded the same in Japanese. And they always thought it was _so_ funny, too.

Kitaro _really_ wanted a fifth tail.

He looked down at the phone in his hand—the first he had ever owned. Neither he nor the mated pair who posed as his grandparents for Beast Boy's benefit had expected that the kid would come back and express his gratitude like that, so it came as a nice surprise. They split the money among them three ways, and that was how he used his share. The customer service representative had been amazed that a boy his age needed so much help choosing a phone, not to mention so much instruction on how to use it.

The first person whose number he called was Rose, and they had been text-messaging each other—was that the right phrase?—at least once a day since then. Usually several times a day. He had learned how to take and send pictures and videos, too. But while she mentioned her father and Lady Snowblood fairly often, it was always casually. He hadn't realized how important they were to her until she told him they were now engaged to be married, and her happiness just bubbled over and spilled out.

He really liked Rose. It wasn't that he had a thing about dating somebody of a different species, or that there weren't any nice kitsune girls out there, because there were, and other yokai girls as well. He just really liked _her_.

Yes, he'd been told that loving humans was a terrible mistake. They were at about the same stage of their lives, both young adults, although she wasn't yet independent, but he was three hundred and fifty years old while she was only sixteen. He figured he'd be about ready to take a mate and start a litter of cubs when he was about four hundred, but in fifty years, she'd be old by human standards, probably a grandmother, maybe even dead. Yet there were poems comparing loving a human to watching the cherry blossoms bud, bloom, and fall—all the more treasured and wondrous because the time spent with them was so short.

Those poems were stupid. There was nothing wonderful about how Rose was going to age and die before he knew it. And now he was supposed to earn his fifth tail by breaking her heart, because she had already lost one mother, and making sure Lady Snowblood got up the mountain to the cave where the old yuki-onna, Snowflower, dwelled—.

Well, that meant either Lady Snowblood was going to die or she was going to become a yuki-onna, and either of those would break Rose's heart. There was a reason why yuki-onna who came down among humans to marry and have children concealed their nature from their families, and that was because they were creatures of immense power who could freeze a person solid with their breath alone. No man would knowingly and willingly take a wife who could freeze his manhood and snap it off like a twig any time she liked.

Lady Snowblood wouldn't be able to conceal what she was—not right away, anyhow. Probably not for a few years, from what he had been told. What with her skin turning pure white, not just humanly pale like it was now, her lips turning blue, and floating along in a cloud of vapor instead of walking on the ground—she was going to be a pretty damn terrifying sight.

He really wanted a fifth tail, but not at the cost of hurting Rose.

Maybe the changeover could wait a while. Like, say, ten years, until Rose was well and truly independent and losing another mother would be sad but not devastating. He could put up with being called 'Dead-Ass' a while longer. However, he wasn't the one who could make that decision. Not without getting into serious trouble.

One advantage of being a kitsune was that he could call on the kami of all foxes, the goddess Inari, for help and guidance. If you called too often or for trivial matters, you ran the risk of incurring her displeasure, but he hadn't yet asked for anything, and this was anything but trivial. So he put his phone away and went to get a nice big bowl of hot, steaming udon noodles with sweetened fried tofu chunks in it. They were her, and every kitsune's, favorite food, which was why they were called kitsune udon. Then he went to the nearest fox shrine, made sure the red kerchief that proclaimed his allegiance to her was nice and straight, set the bowl down in front of the altar, dropped to his knees, touched his forehead to the ground, and prayed.

A growing, white gold radiance told him his prayer was heard and Inari was present.

"Ooh, this looks delicious!" she exclaimed with pleasure. "Your offering pleases me. Now raise your head and tell me what's troubling you."

He did as she commanded. Inari had chosen to manifest in the form of a lovely young girl with a human face but also with fox ears and all ten of her tails. (As the kami of kitsune, she and only she had ten tails.) She and her garments were all white and gold, and as he watched, she took out a pair of red chopsticks and tucked into the noodles.

As she ate, he explained. When they were both done, she set the bowl down and said, very solemnly, "So to spare this human girl, who's seen only sixteen winters, some heartache, you would condemn Setsuka, who has been the yuki-onna for nearly eleven hundred winters, to ten more winters or even longer of an existence that has become torture for her."

"I know," he said, "but for Setsuka, ten more winters is hardly a eyeblink. For Rose, it's half again as long as she's lived. And Lady Snowblood loves Rose and her father. Leaving them now would break her heart, too."

"For fourteen thousand winters, her ancestresses have been yuki-onna. Some for only one winter, some for dozens. For the first ten thousand winters, there were many possible candidates to choose from. But then the world grew bigger and new people came into the area while the old established families left, and fewer and fewer girls who could become the yuki-onna were born. Setsuka was the first in two hundred years, and she's been the yuki-onna for nearly eleven hundred. Fuyumi was supposed to be the next one—she was Yukime's grandmother _and _great-great-great-grandmother. But she never came to Hakkoda-san. She was too small and timid a soul.

"So when we of the greater kami realized Fuyumi would never make the journey, we petitioned Lord Emma-O to find a soul better suited to become the yuki-onna. He did, and when Yukime was conceived, that soul was sent to her mother's womb. You _did_ notice her soul, did you not?"

"Yes. It is—not one you find everyday." It was not a particularly _saintly_ soul, but there was nothing small or feeble about it. Yukie ate meat, wore leather and silk, occasionally killed people, and generally enjoyed the material world's pleasures too much, but she was also impressively serene and harbored practically no malice, greed, envy, hatred, or viciousness in her heart. She also scored pretty high when it came to insight, compassion, and loving-kindness. Those were not qualities she could have achieved all in her current lifetime; her soul had to have been on that path for a number of incarnations. If she continued that way, it probably wouldn't be more than two or three more rebirths before she could opt out of being reborn entirely if she wanted.

"And as she grew, she was watched over and trained in arms and fighting by Sojo-bo-sama, who went to the trouble of disguising himself as a human and opening a dojo to do it. Although I think he was quite bored also, and glad of a diversion." Inari cocked her head and looked at him.

"He did?" Sojo-bo was the leader of the tengu, a clan of bird-human yokai who were all ferocious warriors. They policed the yokai clans as necessary—some of the further flung yokai could be very rowdy and destructive—and had trained quite a few human heroes over the centuries. If he trained Lady Snowblood, it was no wonder she was one of the best Jian Wu practitioners in the world.

"Did Rose not tell you about visiting Tengu Dojo and meeting Yukime's old sensei? That was him."

"I remember her mentioning it, but I thought it was just a name," he confessed.

"Now you know it wasn't. You also know she had the insight and compassion needed to free the ghosts of Kayako and her son and cat from their anger, and the wherewithal to survive it. So she is prepared both spiritually and physically for the challenge. And right now, at this moment, she is not only in Japan, she is within two miles of Setsuka's home. Who knows when she will be again? You cannot promise when she will return, if she ever returns at all. So you _will_ do your part in getting her where she must go. The rest will take care of itself. Trust in your Goddess. You do trust me, don't you?" Inari smiled enigmatically.

"I do!" he vowed.

"Good. I am _very _glad you chose to consult me before you deliberately failed in your task. Now don't worry—something will happen soon that will make it much easier for you. I had a peek at the Akashic Records." She dimpled up and giggled like the girl she looked like. "Oh, there's _so_ much you don't know!"

Her glow grew too bright to look at, and then faded away.

Kitaro was left alone in the shrine with an empty bowl, and the impression that his goddess was not taking him seriously. But he had his orders, and if he didn't carry them out, he had the feeling that instead of calling him 'Dead-Ass', they'd be calling him 'Stump-Tail'.

His faith in Inari was a little tested, though, because several days went by before the promised 'something' happened. He tailed (no pun intended) the family either as another skier too muffled up in hat, scarf and goggles to be identified, or in the form of a snow fox and nothing much happened. Rose's father left on a business trip. Rose and Lady Snowblood left the resort hotel and went back to lodge at the ryokan in Cherishing Girls Village—not too surprising, as it was her ancestral home.

There was a moment when he thought he was getting somewhere. Lady Snowblood and Rose were doing some cross-country skiing—the village was close enough to the ski resort that they could go there any time they liked—and for a moment, the Lady was alone in a clearing. He cast an illusion that the trees had moved, cutting off all directions of escape except toward Snowflower's cave—but then Rose skied right through the illusory trees, ruining it. They chalked it up to the Lady having got a whiff of the volcanic gasses.

He was starting to get very worried, but then Lady Snowblood's brother showed up, wanting to talk to her.

* * *

The day began normally enough, although there was a winter storm warning in effect for the Hakkoda area. Then again, there was a winter storm warning in effect there several times a week; the region got between fourteen to twenty meters of snow between November and late May. The only question was, how high were the winds likely to get? The ski lifts shut down when the winds reached ninety kilometers per hour. Would the resort even bother to start running the lifts, given the prediction?

"Yukie, what do you think?" Rose asked. "Do you want to wait and see, or go just back to the ryokan?" Her tone of voice suggested that she personally wanted to wait.

"I think it will hold off for several hours, but it will turn out worse than predicted," Yukie said, although she could not truly explain why she knew. There was a book with a title which spoke of having a feeling for snow. She had never read it, but that was what she thought she had developed, since coming to Hakkoda-san. A sense of snow. "We ought to be able to get in a run or two, if they decide to open."

Then the surprise: "Nee-chan?" There was a touch on her elbow, and she turned to see Ichiro.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, because there was no reason in the world why her brother should be there. It was at least a three and a half hour train ride from Tokyo to Aomori, alone and Ichiro did not like to travel or ski. He was also what was called a 'paper driver', like many who lived in urban areas with reliable mass transit and nowhere to park a car. That meant he had a license, but used it only rarely and with great reluctance. For that matter, "How did you even know we were here?"

"You shared your plans with Haruko, and she told me. I have to speak to you, urgently. It's about Mother and Father," he replied. "They're facing a crisis."

"Haruko said they were frightened about something, and she didn't know what. Is that what you mean?" she asked. She scanned his face. He looked greyish, sick and sweaty.

"Yes," he said, a degree of relief spreading over his face. "It's about that. I know what it is. Can you come to the café over there? Fifteen minutes should be enough."

Yukie looked at Rose, and performed the minimal polite introduction possible. Rose dutifully said what she should, and then added, "I can wait here so we don't lose our place, if they decide to run the lifts after all, and if they don't, I'll meet you in the café."

"But if the lifts start running, and it takes longer than fifteen minutes—," Yukie began.

"Then I'll get in a run before you do," she shrugged. "I'll be fine."

That much was true; thanks to the serum, Rose was nearly as strong and fully as resilient as Slade. "All right."

She followed Ichiro to the resort café, leaving her rented skis and poles outside on the rack. The place was nearly deserted at that hour. He had already taken a table toward the back, and had a pot of tea waiting and ready. Two cups awaited them; one which was two thirds full, and the other empty. He poured her a cup as she peeled off her gloves and unzipped her coat, and topped up his own.

"There is a secret fa—," he paused, staring at her hand—specifically, at her left hand.

"What? Oh. Yes. It is, as you can see, an engagement ring." She held out her hand, the better to display it.

"Then Haruko was right," he said, shaking his head. "Your American does want to marry you."

"Just because most of my family believes I am useless and worthless does not mean the rest of the world shares that opinion," she said, without a smile.

"Not worthless—no, Nee-chan, I never thought you were—."

"I suppose I had some worth. I did tutor you and help you with your homework, as an elder sister should," she reminisced. "I only wish you'd kept up with your studies. I know it would have pleased Mother and Father if you'd gone to Tokyo University, too. But that was long ago. Tell me what the trouble is." Hanging on to the bitterness and the anger helped no one, least of all herself, but it was hard not to feel it when she was around her family—that is, the family she had come from.

"Ah. You see—when I was in college, I met a girl named Emiko," Ichiro began, "and we dated."

"Is she the mother of your son?" Yukie asked. "Haruko told me you had one."

"Yes. It was only a youthful infatuation, of course," he said, rubbing his neck nervously. "But you're not drinking your tea. Is it too cold?"

She blinked and took a sip. "No, it's fine. Only a youthful infatuation? Yet at the time, you wanted to marry her, or so Haruko said. I don't see how this could possibly tie into Mother and Father's crisis."

"It is complicated," he agreed, "and yes, I wanted to marry her at the time. But then Father showed me the secret family history, and explained where my duty lay. You see, long ago, our name was not Kuwano. It was Kogamura." He paused significantly, waiting for her reaction.

"Kogamura? You mean we were from Koga Village? Ichiro, are you trying to tell me we're secretly descended from the_ shinobi_? And somehow we survived Oda Nobunaga's pogrom against them?" She laughed and took a swallow of tea. "So what powers were we supposed to be heir to? Flight? Invisibility?"

"It's not a laughing matter," he scolded her. "There were some who managed to hide in the forest and others who were away on assignments at the time. They couldn't stick together for fear someone would recognize them, so they went to the furthest corners of Japan, but they kept track of everyone, who they married, who their children were, if they showed any signs of the powers. Within four generations, the most any of them could do was hover a few inches above the ground. In another four, even that was impossible.

"But then an ancestor of ours met a foreigner who was searching for the shinobi, and he told the man that with the records he kept, and enough money, he could resurrect the powers which were once our birthright."

"Go on," Yukie told him. "How was he going to do that?" As ridiculous as this tale was, she was curious as to where it was ultimately going.

"By uniting the lines in marriage again, he believed he could breed the powers back into our family. That was the basis of our family fortune. In return, the foreigner gave him ten generations to produce a person with any of the old powers. If he couldn't, the foreigner would return and take every single one of us as his slaves."

"Who was this foreigner?" she asked. "And how long ago was this?"

"It was two hundred years ago, and the man said his name was Shutan Doji," Ichiro replied. "My son and Haruko's children are the tenth generation. None of them show any signs of any powers."

"Shutan Doji? Like in the Tale of the Demon's Head?" She couldn't help but laugh.

"It was true!" Ichiro protested.

"Even if it were true, after two hundred years, such a contract couldn't be legally binding. Besides, people with superhuman abilities are a dime a dozen these days. Shutan Doji's descendants aren't going to come and enslave all of you. Not in the twenty-first century."

"We didn't think so either," Ichiro said, "but then he reappeared. There was a drawing of him in the book, and his seal on the contract. Father got a message from him, under that same seal, when he married. Great-Uncle's _seen_ him twice. The second time was the night of that Jian Wu competition you entered."

"Wait a moment," Her head was swimming, all of a sudden. "The Tale of the Demon's Head. The Demon's Head…" Ichiro had a pen on the table, so she took that and a paper napkin. "You've seen that drawing, I assume."

Ichiro nodded, and she swiftly sketched the head of a man on the napkin. "Did he look like this?" She showed him the napkin.

Her brother dropped his tea cup, spilling tea all over the table. "How did you know?"

"I know him slightly. I had tea with him a few months ago, two days before Christmas. 'Shutan Doji' is in reality Ra's Al Ghul. He is the head of the Assassin's Guild, and I now believe every word you've said."

"I don't believe this," Ichiro passed a hand over his forehead. "You can't—. How—?"

"I won the competition, and he wanted to speak to me afterwards. He offered me a job, in fact, but I was already employed. I'm going to see him again in a few months. I will gladly speak to him about the contract our family has with him and work out some form of repayment that doesn't involve slavery," she assured him. "In fact, I'll even send him a message now, if it will ease your mind."

She took out her phone, but, as so often happened up there on Hakkoda-san, there were no bars. "No connection right now. Ah, well. I promise faithfully that I will contact him later."

"You…have his number in your phone," Ichiro said, looking dazed. "You actually have his number…"

"Everything will be all right, I promise," she said, putting her phone away in her jacket pocket. "Tell mother and father not to worry. I will negotiate on their behalf." She started to stand up, but her legs did not want to, for some reason.

"That—that's the other part of this. You see, of all of us—you're the only one who inherited any abilities. We've _seen_ you move faster than any normal human. You don't age, either. That's why—."

"You put something in that tea," she realized. "You've drugged me!" But the words came out thick and reluctantly.

"Father sent a message to him—to Shutan or Ra's, whoever he is—that he was able to make good on that contract, and he sent me to get you, before you could leave the country again. I'm sorry, Nee-chan. I truly am."

"Not as sorry as you will be," she said. "Slade—you don't know who—you don't know—he will _kill_ you. _All_ of you. You—Ichiro, you were the first baby I ever held…" Darkness took her, and she knew no more.

* * *

A/N: I've been setting this one up for a while now. 'Guest', whatever you want to say in a review is fine with me. Utter silence when I post a chapter gets discouraging, but at this point I'm going to finish this no matter what. SwordStitcher, I am glad my interpretation of Tim continues to meet with your approval. Thanks, gal!


	45. Kitaro, Rose: Hijacked

Having taken up a position where he could watch both the front and back doors of the resort café, Kitaro waited and watched the crows fool around on the roof. They liked playing in the snow just as much as people did—he'd seen them do it before. There were three of them, rich ebony against the velvety white. Two were flying up to the roof peak, flopping down and doing log rolls before flying back up and doing it again, but the third had found a bit of plastic which it was using like a snowboard. It would pick the plastic up in its beak, fly up to the peak, stand on it, and ride it down to the edge, then pick it up again and fly back up. Just like a child with a sled…

Then he saw Lady Snowblood's brother stick his head out the back door of the café to look right and left. Every line of his body said, clearer than words: furtive. Disappearing again, he reappeared a moment later, supporting—no, wrangling the Lady out the door. She was stumbling along with her eyes more than half-closed, struggling feebly, and a few steps outside, simply sagged to the ground. Her brother picked her up as best he could, slipping a little, on the icy pavement, and carried her to an SUV, where he unlocked the back before slinging her inside.

This was obviously an abduction. Lady Snowblood had been drugged, and her brother was taking her gods knew where. Kitaro's first impulse was to stop it, but immediately after, he realized he didn't need to _stop_ it. He needed to _hijack_ it.

The brother got into the driver's seat and started the vehicle, while Kitaro called the ittan momen, the yokai who resembled a length of white cotton which could somehow fly. Sparing a glance toward the ski lifts, his keen eyes sought out Rose's pink jacket, and spotted her in one of the chairs headed up the mountain. Well, he had to trust Inari. Rising up several meters, he urged the ittan after the SUV. Where was the brother going? Towards Aomori, but there was quite a lot of mountainous countryside to drive through first.

Okay. He had to look for a good place to force the SUV off the road. It wouldn't be that difficult to do, as the road was slushy and had icy patches here and there. Although, on either side of the road, there were four meter high walls of snow, twice the height of a tall man. Maybe not so easy. The road itself looked like an irrigation ditch, seen up above where he was.

Kitaro knew he couldn't take any chances that Lady Snowblood might be injured or killed, but he couldn't care less about the brother. Riding the ittan like a flying carpet, he sped up and circled around, surveying the landscape. No other vehicles on the road, in anticipation of the storm, probably. Good. Most of Hakkoda-san was a lonely place. Ah, a downhill slope of the road, adding the help of gravity.

Now to do the deed—Shifting into his half-mode, where he had an upright, human-sized body with a fox's head, he zoomed the ittan down, swooping in at the SUV on the driver's side. If having a kitsune suddenly flying at him didn't spook the man, he didn't know what would.

It did. Instinctively, the man jerked the wheel, and the vehicle accelerated right into the wall of snow, carving its own tunnel and collapsing that tunnel behind itself. It was a rough, steep downhill road, so the SUV went further than it otherwise might have, fetching up in a shallow ravine, its descent slowed by the snow. Instead of a violent impact, it crunched into the ground with a gentle bump. The way it came to rest at an angle meant it was only partly buried in snow, which was good.

Riding the ittan down to the SUV, Kitaro's first concern was the Lady, who was a limp bundle in the back seat. Jumping down off his helpful friend, the ittan momen, he approached the vehicle and unlocked its door with a touch of magic. Her pulse was slow but strong, her breathing that of someone in a deep sleep, and there were no bruises on her face or lumps on her head. That meant the brother could live, at least for now.

Turning his attention to that man Kitaro saw that he was clawing at some giant poofy thing that had popped out of the steering wheel to hit him in the face. The thing had hit him hard enough to give him a nose bleed and drive his glasses against his face so hard their wire frames had broken the skin. Nice! That way a few more bruises would hardly show or matter.

"Hey," Kitaro tapped him on the shoulder, "Just out of curiosity, why were you trying to abduct your sister?"

"Ki-ki-kit—," the man stammered.

"Yah, I'm a kitsune. So—why did you do it? You can skip the denial and the lying, I'm not buying any of that."

"The debt," Lady Snowblood's brother admitted, taking off his glasses to swipe his sleeve over his face, smearing the blood around. "The ancestral debt. It was her or us, Father said. Before she left the country again, while her man was away."

"Yah? Well, you'll have to come up with some other way to pay it, whatever it is. She's no longer one of you or yours. Now, that stuff you gave her. What was it, and how long before it wears off?"

"It was sleeping pills—only sleeping pills, nothing dangerous," the man gabbled.

"Heh, I'm not even human, and even _I_ know that's not true," the kitsune scoffed. "How long?"

"Eight hours—twelve, at most. She didn't drink a full cup."

"Thanks!" Kitaro knocked the man out, then reached in and turned the engine off. Breathing exhaust fumes was dangerous, he knew. As a final touch, he took the glasses off the man's face and broke them at the bridge, then dropped them in the brother's lap. Let him try and drive away like that! "Hey, Momen. Can you come a little closer? I'm going to put her on you—careful now. Don't let her roll off."

If a length of white cotton could roll its eyes, it would have, but it slid down smoothly and leveled itself out. Kitaro eased Lady Snowblood onto the itten, where she lay as if in a hammock.

"Yah, that's it. Now…" he looked around. The mess the SUV made when it went off the road would be visible, which meant the vehicle would be found. Now, if he were a man who drugged and abducted his sister, and said sister then went missing without a trace, he would never admit she had been in the SUV at all. Kitaro did not feel like making it easy on the Lady's brother. He was about Yukie's height and weight, he guessed, so he started off on foot, leaving a very visible trail in the snow. By the time rescuers came, the snow would be falling, he estimated, softening the trail but not erasing it.

"Follow me," he told the itten, and took off across the snow. Once he thought the trail was long enough, he planned to hop back on the other yokai, and take Lady Snowblood to the base of the mountain where her ancestress, Snowflower, awaited her.

* * *

Back at the resort, Rose finished her first run and then got right back on the lift, assuming Yukie was already on her way up. When she couldn't find her almost-stepmother at the top, she first tried calling her, only to lose the connection while the phone was still ringing. She shrugged, put her phone away, and started down again.

Still no Yukie, and the sign was up saying that the lift was shutting down once everyone on it at that moment was at the top. The sky was looking ominous now, and the wind was picking up. Turning around in a circle, Rose looked for her again. Well, she could ask at the café—. When she got closer to the building, she saw Yukie's skis and poles were still on the rack. Was she still talking to her brother?

Rose went in. The place was empty save for one lone waitress reading a magazine at the counter, who perked up and greeted her. "I'm actually looking for someone, a woman about thirty, Japanese, wearing a red ski jacket. She was here with her brother, earlier…"

"Oh—they were back there," the girl pointed. "I forgot about them, actually."

There was a table back there with a pot of tea, two askew chairs, a half-empty cup, an empty one, and a puddle of spilled tea. A spear of anxiety lanced Rose's heart. _Yukie's not here…No. She didn't abandon me here, she wouldn't—no, no, no, NO!_

The anxiety spiked and set off her precognition. She heard her father say, as if over the phone. "_We'll find her, Rose. There's that GPS tracker in the zipper pull on her jacket. She's dressed for the cold and she has more experience in arctic temperatures than nearly anyone else on Earth. __**We'll find her**__."_

Then she was really scared.

"Oh, look at the mess!" the waitress said, starting forward to clean it up.

She snapped an arm out, barring the way. "No. Call the police, or emergency services, whoever you call here. I think this is a crime scene. My moth—my father's fiancée is missing."

"Oh! Are you sure?"

"_**Yes**_," Rose emphasized with a glare and gritted teeth. As the girl went to make the call, Rose spotted something else. On the edge of the puddled tea was a paper napkin, partly sodden, part dry. There was a sketch of a man's face on the napkin.

Yukie's hobby was sketching and painting in a very traditional Japanese style. She was good at it, too, not on a professional level maybe, but still good. On quiet evenings in the ryokan, she sometimes got out a notebook to do a little work. She'd done portraits of both Rose and her father—joking that the 'granite face' brushstroke was the most appropriate for Slade. So Rose knew beyond any doubt, Yukie had drawn that picture.

But why would Yukie have sketched Ra's Al Ghul?

Rose knew it was concealing evidence, but she took it anyway, tucking it away in her pocket as she took out her phone to call her father.

* * *

A/N: I have actually seen, with my own eyes, a crow flop down and do a log roll on a snowy roof. Looking it up on line, I found that crow was not unique—crows all over the world have fun the same way, and there is video proof. I knew they were smart enough to make and use tools to get to food, but making toys? That's not survival behavior. That's playing around and having fun.

Thank you Dark Lord Dobby, Swordstitcher and Tev! NO TIME FOR TALK! MUST WRITE MORE NOW!


	46. Yukie: Snowblind

Yukie slept and dreamt she was a child sleeping over in her grandmother's apartment. Her Baba had a cat named Satsuma, because he was the same color as a Satsuma orange, and he was very sweet and loving. One of the things he did was to come right up to her face when she was lying asleep on her futon and touch her face with his whiskers before he turned around and cuddled up in the space between her chin and her neck. Of course that also meant that sometimes she woke up with a face full of fur, half-suffocated, and that was what was happening right now—.

With a gasp she woke and sat up, scattering a layer of snow which she had taken for Satsuma's whiskers and fur. She was out in the mountains somewhere, curled up in the lee of a rocky outcropping while all around her, the snow came down in enormous clumps as big as cotton balls. She could hear the wind, see the way it drove the snow around, but the rocks blocked the worse of it where she was.

_I must still be dreaming_, she thought, because she was not cold at all, not even the slightest, and the snow hadn't melted as it fell on her face. More than that, she wasn't wearing gloves, and the handful of snow she scooped up might as well have been sugar or flour. It didn't melt and it wasn't cold either, nor were her fingers numb or stiff. They were as flexible and sensitive as they normally were. Although she didn't mind the cold as others did, that didn't mean she didn't _feel_ it, and certainly she would be cold, lying in the snow on rocks as she was.

Yet otherwise this dream was so vivid she might have been awake. Her eyes were dry and scratchy, her mouth dry too, as it was on mornings when she'd taken medicine for a cold the night before. The sports bra she wore chafed her in that same spot it always did, and she needed to go to the bathroom. Her phone was even buzzing in her jacket pocket—.

Her phone _was_ buzzing in her pocket. She pulled it out, and discovered she had a phone call from a number she did not know. "Hello, who is this?" she answered it.

"Yukie!" Rose cried out. "Oh, thank God! Are you okay? What happened? Where are you?" It sounded like she was on a speakerphone.

"It's all right, Rose. This is just a very lucid dream. When I wake up—when I wake up, we'll—," she repeated herself.

"Ms. Kuwano?" An unfamiliar male voice cut in, speaking Japanese. "This is Officer Tanaka Shinsuke of the Aomori Prefecture Police. Your fiancé's daughter claims you were drugged and abducted by your brother, Kuwano Ichiro, from the Hakkoda Resort café between the hours of ten and eleven this morning. Is this in fact the case?"

"Is it—is it—What time is it?" she asked. Her thoughts were fuzzy and thick. Again, just as if she'd taken something to help her sleep.

"8:28 PM, ma'am." Over nine hours? Had she been asleep out there that long?

"This isn't a dream?" She looked around. Everywhere, everything she could see—all of it was white. Just snow and things covered in snow.

"No, Ms. Kuwano. Where are you? Are you in danger at this moment?" the policeman asked.

"I don't know where I am. I'm outside—it looks like I'm still on Hakkoda-san, from what I can tell. I'm in no other danger, I don't think." She still did not feel the cold—but she couldn't be freezing to death. Her hands were perfectly comfortable, and if she were freezing, they would be as stiff and unfeeling as a marble statue's. Her feet were as comfortable as they could be in ski boots.

"Ah," the officer said. "Then I advise you not to move from your location and to conserve your phone's charge as much as possible. We are at the beginning of a very serious storm pattern and it may be some time before we can safely send out a rescue party to find you."

"I suppose it would be bad to have to send a rescue party out after a rescue party," she said. Everything still had a dreamlike quality to her. This could not be real. It could not be happening. "As long as I am safe where I am, I'll stay in that place. My phone was fully charged this morning. I am in a sheltered spot—relatively sheltered, at least—and I have a few energy gels in my belt pack." Although at only a hundred calories per tube, they would do little to stave off hunger. However, they were better than nothing.

"Good, good. Now, do you remember how you got there?"

"Not exactly. This morning, my brother showed up at the resort saying that he had to speak to me. We went in the café, and he gave me tea. He didn't drink any himself, but I thought nothing of it. We talked. Then I tried to stand up, and I couldn't. That was the last thing I knew before I woke up here. Where is Ichiro now?"

"In the hospital. We found him about two hours ago. He is suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, and it is not known when he will come to, or if there will be permanent brain damage. His SUV had crashed, and he must have been trying to get back to the road or to stay warm. The tailpipe was blocked with snow."

"Oh," She remembered the chubby little baby he had been, and how he had clapped his hands and crowed with glee as she and Haruko blew soap bubbles. Her eyes stung—they stung as if she wasn't simply crying, but if she had something in them. "Poor Ichiro." Frowning, she brushed at them—and tiny bits of ice came away on her fingers. Bits like sleet. Not snowflakes.

She touched one to her tongue. It tasted like tears.

Her tears were freezing solid as they came out of her eyes, yet she did not feel cold at all.

This could not be happening.

The officer had said something she missed. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"Can you think of any reason why he would have drugged and abducted you?" the man asked.

That was a question which called for a delicately false answer. "I've been estranged from my family for many years. This was my first trip back to Japan in over a decade, and I brought Rose and her father with me. He and I have been together for more than two years, and we wanted to find out how the three of us got along as a family. My family disapproved, even though I am a grown woman and financially independent. Then Slade and I got engaged last week. The only family member I am on good terms with is my sister Haruko, and she was the only one of them I told. She didn't disapprove, but Haruko is—endlessly gabby. That is the only reason I can think of."

"See!" she heard Rose call out in the background. "I _told_ you that already!"

"Yes, you did. We have contacted your family. However, due to the storm, all flights and all trains are cancelled, and the roads are extremely dangerous," the officer told her.

She still was not the slightest bit cold. She couldn't say she was warm, either. To her, the temperature was exactly right, neither hot nor cold. "How cold is it? And how cold is it going to get?" she asked.

"It is nineteen below and dropping. Ms. Kuwano, I am very sorry we cannot send anyone out to find you right now. I…wish it were otherwise." His voice was heavy, leaden.

"I see," she said. "Are the forecasters comparing it to the Death March storm?"

"NO!" Rose exploded in the background. "Don't even think of that!"

"Yes," the police officer said, with great reluctance. "Perhaps worse."

"Then may I please speak with Rose alone for a moment?" Yukie was tired of sitting in one place. She stood up unsteadily due to the ski boots, which were never meant for walking any great distance in. People always compared them to Frankenstein's boots. She sat back down.

"Of course," She heard the receiver pick up and the speaker effect go away.

"Yukie—no. Don't get scared. I—it's going to be all right," Rose said, and she could hear the forced bravery in her voice. "You're in the best cold weather gear money can buy. You don't have to get up and march because you've got a stupid commanding officer. You worked in subzero environments for twelve years, and you know what to do. They were still finding survivors over a week later, anyway."

"That's what I was about to say to you!" Yukie mock-chided her. "Yes. All of that is true. Yet, if the worst does happen—."

"No! It won't! You're going to be fine, and we'll laugh at how scared we were—all three of us, together."

"We will, won't we? And your father will roll his eyes and shake his head," She laughed a little right then. "But still, if I do not survive this—know that I love you, my dear, _dear_ daughter! And when you and your father fight and have fallings-out, because I know you will, remember these weeks we had together, and try not to hate him."

"I will, but I won't _have_ to, because it's going to be okay. Oh. Dad. I've tried calling him and calling him, but he never answers his family phone when he's working, not for anything. So I leave him messages when I have something new to tell him. Oh, why isn't he ever _here_ when I need him?!"

"Rose—it's not the time for that. I will call and leave him a message too, a short one. Remember. Remember the wonderful time we had, and that you are loved. Promise me." The tears pattered softly in her lap as they fell, tiny bits of ice that tasted like the sea.

"O—okay," Rose said. "I love you too—Mom." She was sobbing.

The officer took the phone back, and asked her a few more questions before ending the call. She had to conserve what charge there was on her phone, after all.

Yukie sat down again, tucking her phone back into its pocket and zipping it shut. She wanted to think about what she would say to Slade before she called, and she did not want to be choked up when she did it.

Holding her hands up in front of her face, she flexed her fingers again. They still felt perfectly normal, moved as normally as they ever did, and her sense of touch was unimpaired, except that she did not feel cold at all.

_I am not freezing to death. Something else is going on here._

_Might I perhaps be changing? For twelve years, I worked with Dr. Fries. I was exposed to his cryochemicals—in very slight amounts, true, but continually exposed_.

_But I'm not a meta. I'm not even a carrier_.

Yet there were strange genes in her DNA, genes that were not entirely human.

_No. This has nothing to do with his laboratory. This is something else_.

It would be extremely ironic if it ended up that she and Victor Fries were the only people able to touch each other safely, now that Nora Fries was cured and she loved Slade Wilson.

She and Slade had never said the words 'I love you,' to each other. Not even when they got engaged. It did not seem necessary. Yet if the call she was about to make were the last words she ever said to him, what would she say, other than that?

Yukie took out her phone and made the call. It went to voice mail, of course.

She began, "Hello, Slade. By now I'm sure you've listened to Rose's messages. I am somewhere on Hakkoda-san. You remember how surprised I was when you told me I was not entirely human? I should not have been. My grandmother left me a secret message encoded in a letter. It said that if I wanted to find out what I was I should give up every earthly thing and go to Hakkoda-san before the plum blossoms come out."

She paused and then went on, "But every earthly thing includes you and Rose, and I could not give up the two of you. Especially you. I chose _you_. I chose Rose. But for all that I intended not to do this, here I am, all the same. Now that I am here, now that I'm drawing nearer to the place, I can feel that something is happening to me. I don't know what will come of it—but whatever may happen—."

She spoke for a few more minutes before ending the call. She still had at least three quarters of a full charge left on the phone when she was done, and she put it back in her pocket.

Now it was time to take care of her other pressing problem, that of answering the call of nature. Being female, that meant undoing and at least partially removing a lot of clothing, especially since she wore ski pants with a bib. She had to take off her jacket entirely, in fact. In the process, she discovered that no part of her body felt the cold, even when in direct contact with the snow or with a cutting wind whistling around her. The process was not aided by the ungainly ski boots.

It was at a moment when she really couldn't jump up and stop it, that the fox ran off with her jacket.

"No! Stop! It's just goose _down_, it's not a goose!" she yelled when she saw the creature pop up out of its hole, seize her jacket in its jaws and run. It paused a moment to look at her with surprisingly intelligent eyes, and she threw a clump of snow at it. It ran, not dropping the jacket as she had hoped it would.

Was it her imagination, or did it have…more than one tail?

_A kitsune? I'll be seeing the yuki-onna next_.

But now she did not have her phone, her lifeline to Rose and Slade, or the GPS tracker, which could have helped rescuers find her. She was truly alone now.

_I would have liked to hear their voices again_.

When she was done and she had put her clothes back in order, she realized she couldn't find the shelter of the rock again. She had moved away from it to do what she had to do, but between the darkness, the snow, and the ever-shifting wind—she had no idea what direction to go in. She was lost and snowblind.

Taking a few steps in what she thought was the correct direction, she felt the ground give way under her, and she tumbled down what seemed like an endless crevasse.

It ended, however, with a bone-shaking thump among the roots and trunks of a grove of juhyo. The snow and ice were so thick on the tree tops, and they grew so close together, that it had seemed solid.

The damned boots were no help to her. In fact, they were a hindrance at best and dangerous at worst. She didn't need them to keep out the cold, so why wear them? She had on two pairs of heavy socks, and she was walking on snow, not pavement. She took them off before she even stood up and assessed the rest of her. Her hands were scratched, with crystals of frozen blood in the scrapes, but otherwise she seemed fine. So her bodily fluids were liquid inside her body, but froze when they left her body. She wondered what an old-fashioned thermometer under her tongue would read at that moment.

She intuited that it would not be 98.6 degrees. Would it even be above freezing?

It was too dark down there in the Juhyo grove, but she could see a lighter patch off to her right. A clearing, perhaps? It was a direction, at least, so she went toward it.

It was a clearing, and there was someone in it. Someone who was waiting for her.

It was a woman who stood with her back toward Yukie, clad only in her own long black hair, which the wind whipped into a writhing cloud around her. She looked as if she had been carved out of snow, so white and flawless was her skin, but she was gaunt as a famine victim. Her ribs stood out; so too, her pelvic bones.

Then she turned. Her eyes were huge, dark and haunting, her lips blue as cobalt-glazed porcelain.

"At last," said the yuki-onna. "At last, one of my own has come to me, as they promised." Her expression warmed as she smiled. "Two hundred years ago!"

She lifted a hand, and for a split second, Yukie thought she was wearing long fancy nail-guards, but they were not silver, they were ice, as she learned when the yokai slapped her across the face, and _sharp_. She was too startled to dodge the blow, but not too startled to roll with it and leap across the clearing.

"Two hundred years ago I was not yet born. It should have been my grandmother," she said. "She left me a letter telling me if I wanted to know what I was, I should come here in winter. You're a yuki-onna. Is that what I am? Am _I_ a yuki-onna?"

The snow spirit regarded her with mad eyes. She lifted a hand and pointed at the mountain behind her. "Find me at the top of that peak, and you will know." Then she spiraled out into a vortex of snow, and vanished, at one with the wind and the storm.

Yukie lifted a hand to her face, brushing away little icicles of blood. The peak was high and looked treacherous, but she began the climb.

* * *

A/N: Yep, Kitaro stole her jacket. What else did she say to Slade? You'll have to read his next chapter. THANK YOU SWORDSTITCHER AND DARK LORD DOBBY I CAN'T STOP WRITING!


	47. Yukie, Rose: The Deep Cold

The wind and the angle of the slope made it impossible to walk upright; she would topple like a tree. Instead she would have to climb like a monkey. Yukie would have given a great deal to have her gloves, now lost along with her jacket and phone, not for protection against the cold, but against the rocks and the jagged edges of the ice.

She tore off the sleeves of her thermal undershirt instead, tied them around her palms, and climbed. That helped. So did being in her stocking feet; her toes found better purchase than they could ever have in the clumsy ski boots. Up. Left hand, testing the strength of the handhold. Left foot, easing her weight on it.

Right hand, scrabbling over the ground for something to fasten on. Right foot, wriggling into the space between rocks. Would they shift or would they stay? She was almost glad this would be so difficult, glad of the pain that wracked her spine. It meant she could not think of Rose nor of Slade, nor of Victor and Nora, nor Haruko and Ichiro, and not of her family's betrayal. Climbing encompassed all her attention.

Left hand. No thinking, no grieving. Left foot. Just the climb. The snow flung itself into her face, cutting like tiny shuriken, the wind tore at her garments, ripping the hat from her head and flinging it away. Right hand, raised to keep the snow out of her eyes. Right foot—slipping, clawing, sliding several feet back down the peak. Jolting, panicking, biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood—stopping her descent. Spitting out blood which was solid before it hit the snow, seeing it shatter like stained glass. Starting up the slope again.

Yuki-onna. Yuki-onna. The snow woman. In childhood, she wanted to be one so she would never be too hot again. Or else a kawahime, a river spirit, living in the water. But being either of them meant—No. No thinking. Climb. Climb.

The wind lashed her hair around her face, screaming around her ears, buffeting her as though it sought to tear her off the mountain and smash her into pieces at the bottom. Of course. The wind was not merely wind. It was her. The Yuki-onna.

Persevere. Climb. Left hand, left foot. Right hand, right foot. How long had she been climbing? An hour? Several hours? The pain in her back was nigh crippling, her fingers were cramping. And she was hungry and weary already. Drugged sleep was not true sleep, not restful sleep. It was a cheat and a trick. She had not eaten since that morning, more than twelve hours before.

There! Above her, twenty feet above, perhaps, three juhyo grew close together in some pocket of soil. She could wedge herself into the space between them and the mountain, rest for a time, use an energy gel. She could do. Right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand. Inching her way up a slope that would have been only a moderate hike, were it only summer or fall.

Finally, she reached the trees, except they were not trees. They were miko statues, and they were not simply sitting on the mountain, they were carved into the mountain. But there was a place above and behind them where she could rest without fear of sliding back down. She could rest…

Again, she dreamt.

It came from the Deep Cold, though what the Deep Cold was, it did not know. Outer space? Another dimension? The Arctic Circle? The part of her which was Yukime stood outside of it, observing and analysing, while the part of her that was part of _it_ lived it. It was a very simple organism at the start, very small and very simple, more like a virus than anything else, except that it did not reproduce, either asexually or by mating. It was little more than a shimmer of icy air, a quick snow flurry, but one which was self-aware. To a degree, anyway.

In the winter, it was free. Free to play, to dance, to rejoice. Free to fly here and there, skating-sylph-like over ice, going where it pleased. But when the Long Heat began, it needed a host if it was going to survive. It found one—a mouse. Traveling into its body in the form of cold air, it went into the creature's brain and stayed there. It became the mouse. It ate what the mouse ate. It did what the instincts of the mouse told it to do. But it was not entirely a mouse. It did not age or die. Then the winter came again, and it yearned to be free and do all the things it loved best, so it ripped itself free of the mouse-body, taking with it all the vital essence of the mouse, leaving only a little fur and a few bones.

It passed the winter as it had passed the last, but now it was…bigger. Stronger. But the winter did not last forever, and when the Long Heat approached, it found another host, this time a bird. Again, it became, for those months, a bird, and again, when winter came, it devoured what was left of the host and grew more powerful.

Thus it went, for time unmeasured, working its way up and down the food chain. A stag one year, a wild pig the next, a crane, a shrike, a turtle. It developed other powers—the ability to calm its next host into remaining still while it took over its body, for it was now large enough that it took some time to fit all of itself in. Then the ability to_ lure_ a new host to it, and to charm other members of its host's kind into accepting it, which was necessary if it was a pack animal.

It became a monkey, a crow, a pheasant, a wolf. Sometimes it encountered a creature which was somehow kin to it—the many-tailed foxes, the kappa which lived in the rivers, the enormous golden-orb earth tribe spiders. Those it could not take over—but there were plenty of other creatures to choose from.

Then a new sort of animal came into the area. It was mostly hairless, and it walked funny, on its hind legs alone. It not only hunted other animals and ate them, it tore off their skins and wore them to make up for its own lack of fur, and it made its own small suns from wood to light and warm their nights and their winters. It liked to form packs like wolves did, but unlike wolves, it had many breeding pairs, not just one.

It was a human. The humans proved…interesting. One year, when the Long Heat drove it to seek out a host, it decided to try one. It chose a very small female, more or less at random. Or, as it learned soon enough, it was now a little girl.

Yukie woke with a start. What had she just dreamed? Was it some twist of her own brain, or was it a racial memory, a _genetic_ memory?

Whatever it was, she had slept long enough that it was now day. Not that she could see anything but snow, for the storm was still raging around her, but it was light out. She looked at her hands, her feet. The socks were wearing thin, but they would do.

Digging around in her belt pouch, she found the energy gels, except they weren't gels, they were solid ice. Still, she peeled the wrappers off and ate them, crunching them up into slush in her jaws before she swallowed them. She also devoured handfuls of snow, trying to get full. She was so _hungry_—never before had she wished to be fatter, but now she did. A higher percentage of body fat translated into a greater chance of survival, under the circumstances.

* * *

Elsewhere: Rose looked out the window at the storm. Over a meter of snow had fallen in twenty-four hours, accompanied by winds of hurricane strength, and there was no sign of it letting up anytime soon. The temperature was over thirty degrees below zero, and the wind chill would make it feel like it was ninety-eight degrees below—or worse. That meant frostbite would set in within five minutes of being outdoors.

She was really, really frightened for Yukie. Frightened, but not yet completely in despair, although she was getting there.

The police hadn't taken her seriously until they found Kuwano Ichiro in his crashed SUV, and a trail leading away into the wilderness. The trail was obliterated by the storm before they could find whoever left it—all they could really tell was that it was made by someone on foot.

Then all of a sudden she went from being a novelty and a nuisance to a witness. Officer Tanaka took her along to the hospital to identify him while others searched for Yukie, and then the storm had hit in earnest, stranding them in the hospital. Now it was morning. She had spent the night in a spare bed in the Pediatrics Unit, but when she woke, she went to Ichiro's room, to see if he had come to yet.

He hadn't, but the way his eyelids flickered said that he might soon do so.

After several hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, Yukie's brother had spent the night in restraints, just in case he regained consciousness and decided to leave, but they hadn't been the only security precaution. Tanaka had spent the night in the same room, on the other bed, but now he had gone off to get breakfast and wash up, leaving the hospital's security officer in his place. The SO had no orders to keep her out of the room, so there she was, but looking at an unconscious man, however much you hated him, was boring.

The day before, his doctor (Rose was glad to see that that doctor was a woman) had said that carbon monoxide poisoning could lead not only to permanent brain damage, but that damage could be slow to assert itself. Days, even weeks could go by before any actual deterioration showed, but when it did, if it did, it would be irreversible. Rose hoped that if that was the case, he could first explain what he had done and why. Afterwards, he could be a drooling vegetable, and she wouldn't care.

Her phone rang; it was Yukie's sister, Haruko. The security officer stirred in his seat and looked at her. The hospital had a 'No Cell Phones' policy, so she had to find one of the land lines and call her back.

"Rose-chan? How are you doing?" Yukie's sister was good-hearted but she talked too much and she couldn't keep secrets, which was bad if the secrets were yours but good when they were other people's. She had been truly shocked to learn what Ichiro had done, in Rose's opinion, and furious at his stupidity. Now she sounded frightened.

"Not so good," she admitted. "I tried calling Yukie an hour or so ago, but she didn't answer. That might not mean anything, as connections are iffy out here. You?"

"I tried, too. Nothing. I know I already apologized for sharing Yukie's news with the rest of the family. I only wanted to point out to them how little they thought of the best of their children, because Nee-chan is the best of us. I'm smart enough, but I know I'm pushy and even crude sometimes. That's who I am and how I am. Yukie was—Yukie _is_ much more intelligent and refined than I am.

"Rose—last night when we spoke, you hinted at something about your father. Since then, I looked his name up on line. There was more about him than I thought, and there were pictures of him. Of him in his armor. Is it true, what they say of him? Does he really do—that?"

"Yes," Rose replied. "If anything, the internet understates it."

"I see…" Haruko definitely sounded scared. "Please tell him I had no idea this would happen. I still don't understand_ why_ it happened. Our parents—they're nearly hysterical, and it's not all because their precious only son is in the hospital and I still don't know what it is they're frightened of—it's not your father, either, or they wouldn't have—I think they told Ichiro to do this. I don't know why. I just want my sister to be all right! I'm so sorry! Please, tell him how sorry I am. I had no idea—."

"It's all right," Rose said. "I'll tell him when I talk to him next." She really didn't think Haruko had anything to do with what Ichiro did. The Kuwano family had a huge secret which they weren't sharing with their younger daughter, and it had something to do with Ra's Al Ghul.

"Thank you! I'll be there as soon as they have everything going again after the storm. I need to be there. Please take good care of yourself, Rose-chan. Stay courageous and strong. I believe Yukie will be all right."

"How? How can she be all right?" Rose asked, her voice breaking.

"I don't know! I don't know, but she has to be," Haruko replied. "She has to."

After the call, Rose looked out at the storm again. She really wanted to hear a friendly voice, wanted to speak to someone who wasn't part of this. Kitaro wasn't answering his phone, unfortunately, and her friends Saori and Michiru were in school. That left Robin.

* * *

The hunger was worse than the pain of her back, her feet, her hands. The hunger gnawed at Yukie's stomach, trying to eat itself and finding no nourishment. She was light-headed with hunger, and the energy gels were all gone, all used up. Yukie lay against the mountain as if she were a newborn at her mother's breast, wanting milk but finding nothing but a dried-up teat. It was making her hallucinate.

At least she told herself it was a hallucination…

Below her, a raccoon dog had dug a burrow in the earth and was hibernating in that den. It was a plump, fat tanuki—she could practically smell it. Once, when she was quite young, her grandmother had served her some tanuki soup, made from raccoon dog meat. At the time, she hadn't known what was in it, and she was nearly sick some years later when she found out. Now, though, her mouth watered for the rich, wild, gamey taste of the soup.

Hungry as she was, imagining the presence of the tanuki in its hole, she envisioned herself reaching down into the den to touch it, freezing it solid. Then, when all its cells ruptured from the inside out, sucking in its vital essence like a spider sucking out the liquefied innards of an insect it injected with its poison.

She sat up. Suddenly she was not hungry anymore. It was like a tremendous rush of energy, more than any sports gel could give, more than a whole cone of cotton candy. And her mouth was full of the taste of tanuki soup. Strength flowed back into her limbs—.

Now she had to know. Digging like a dog herself, she tore into the snow, found the mouth of the den and reached in.

What she pulled out was a frozen, desiccated bag of skin and fur which held an intact skeleton. It still _smelled _like a living raccoon dog. Moments before, it had been a living raccoon dog.

Before she devoured it.

* * *

A/N: Thought I would have this up yesterday, but then I realized it should be Rose in the middle section rather than Slade. Here you go! Thank you to Dark Lord Dobby, SwordStitcher, my new Guest reviewer, and my returning 'Guest'! Dobby, does this cast the whole transformation in a new light, or what? According to yokai lore, yuki-onna _can_ eat nothing but human food for years on end, but they can also live on the vital essence of things they freeze to death. Including humans.


	48. Tim, Rose, Yukie, Slade: Escalation

Tim listened to Rose very carefully, and asked a few questions. When the call was over, he had a look through his closets and then went down to the big common room, where the rest of the Titans were hanging out. "Remember a week or so ago when we all agreed we would do our best to come to the rescue if Slade's fiancée was in trouble? Well, now's our chance. She was drugged and abducted by her brother, who then crashed his SUV. The drug he gave her makes some people get up and do things, even very complicated things, without knowing it, so they think she just sleepwalked out into the mountains and got lost. Slade is—out of town on business and can't be reached."

"I'll bet he is," Cyborg said, "and I bet I can guess what kind of business he's on."

"I don't like that either, but Yukie hasn't done anything wrong, and the clock is ticking. Raven, do you think you can teleport us to_ this_ location in Japan?" He called up a bird's eye view of the hospital from a satellite street mapping site.

"Yeah, I should be able to do that," she said, surveying the screen.

"It doesn't look like this right now, though. This must have been taken months ago. Right now there's a terrible winter storm going on, so we're all going to need serious cold weather gear. It's something like thirty below without the wind chill factor. Dress in layers—_lots_ of layers," Tim instructed. "Cover every inch of skin. Gar, take the time to research which animal can really stand up to the weather."

"Gotcha. It's probably going to be a polar bear, though—Oh, hey, is there any chance we can swing by Tokyo while we're there? You gotta meet Kitaro," Beast Boy said. "I've been thinking maybe we ought to ask him if he'd like to join the Titans for a while. I know we've already got a magic user, but there's no reason we couldn't have two, and I bet they'd learn a lot from each other."

"Where do you know _him_ from?" Raven asked, a slightly sharp note in her voice.

"Uh—it's a long story, but he's somebody who would go out of his way to help somebody in trouble. That's the kind of person we want on the team, right?" Gar asked.

"We can talk about it later," Tim said. "Anyway, get your gear together and meet back here in half an hour."

"And don't forget to wear your long johns!" Gar added cheerfully.

Raven was the last to return, about five minutes after Gar, who was usually the tardiest. "Um, I have some news about where we're going. Remember how I said there was going to be a new Snow Elemental? Well, it's happening _now_, and right now, on this whole entire planet, the place with the worst wintery weather—."

"Betcha can't say that five times fast!" Beast Boy interrupted.

"Not now, doofus! The worst snowstorm on Earth is going on right _there_ in that area. So—anybody want to guess what Yukime means? I looked it up when I realized where we were going."

Tim groaned. "Don't tell me. Winter? Frost? Ice?"

"Lady Snow, or Snow Princess. It's not a common name in Japan, not any more. It's kind of old fashioned, like if somebody named their kid Mildred over here. I don't think we have to worry about her freezing to death. That doesn't mean she's out of danger, though. The old Snow Elemental is trying to kill her right now." Raven predicted gloomily.

Starfire pointed out, sadly, "I did think we should have warned Rose. I wish we had."

"That's…really not good," Robin said. "I mean, even if she wins—think of Swamp Thing and Clayface. They're very powerful, but they're not human anymore, either. Not human enough to lead a normal life. I think either way, this is going to be a terrible loss."

"But then there is Mera, the Queen of Atlantis," Starfire said, "so it is not impossible."

"True, but she wasn't a normal human to begin with. I say we don't tell Rose we know this. She has enough to worry about right now." Robin looked around for confirmation.

"C'mon, let's hurry it up," Cyborg said. "I'm getting overheated standing around like this." Given the amount of metal incorporated into his body, he was especially vulnerable to changes in temperature, as metal conducted heat and cold much more quickly than flesh and blood.

"Yeah, me too." As Beast Boy had predicted, a polar bear was best suited to the kind of weather raging in Mount Hakkoda area right then, and polar bears tended to faint when the heat was above fifty degrees.

Raven summoned her soul-shadow form, and moments later, they were all in the hospital parking lot. Starfire, who arrived in midair because she was flying, was immediately blown across the lot into a huge snowbank, impacting with such force that she was buried completely. The wind was so fierce the snow was coming in sideways.

"THIS ISN'T A _STORM_," Cyborg shouted, "IT'S RAGNAROK! THE FROZEN END OF THE WORLD!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Raven yelled back. It was with no little effort that the five of them managed to get inside the medical building.

Rose met them in the waiting room. "I can't believe you guys actually came!"

"We're here to help, but I'm not sure how much help we can be," Robin said, shedding some of his outer layers of clothing. "Reading about the weather is one thing, but none of us were exactly expecting it to be that bad. I don't know what we can do when it's like this."

"But you're here for me," she said. "That matters a lot. Plus, we can volunteer around the hospital. Everybody else is stuck here too—doctors, nurses, kitchen staff. They'll have to work around the clock until the storm lets up. We might not be medical professionals, but we can still lend a hand. Come on, let me show you around."

So the six teenagers did what they could to help the somewhat bemused staff around the hospital—making beds, carrying trays, filling water pitchers, and entertaining the children in the pediatrics unit. They even managed to clear most of the snow from the hospital roof, which was built for normal snowfall in the area and already at the high end of what it was meant to bear. It wasn't like saving the world, but keeping a hospital roof from collapsing was still something you could be proud of, as Cyborg said.

When night came, Rose was once again at Kuwano Ichiro's bedside. Watching him. Staring at him. Hating him. There had never been a chance for her to question him alone, no chance to interrogate him—she had chosen not to tell Robin about the connection to Ra's, not yet anyway, because if she told Robin, the next thing he would do was tell Batman and then it would be entirely out of her hands.

* * *

Up on the peak she was climbing, inch by painful inch, Yukie found a pocket between stones to stop and rest, and also to take stock of what she had left. Her socks were worn through, so several hours before, she had made foot wraps out of the legs of her long underwear. The body of her thermal undershirt had been repurposed into a makeshift balaclava, to keep snow out of her eyes. The sports bra she simply took off and threw away because the chafing annoyed her. In addition to the hand wraps, foot wraps and improvised hat, that left her with one pair of ski pants, a camisole, a pair of panties, and a diamond ring.

_If this keeps up, I will be naked by the time I get to the peak_. Her hunger had not returned since her 'meal' of tanuki that day, nor was she thirsty. Or cold, though it was increasingly hard to remember when she had last been cold, or even how it felt to be cold.

_I wonder if it is like being weaned for many species. Once they stop drinking their mother's milk, they can no longer digest milk at all. Forever after, they must eat meat, or whatever food it is they are meant to eat. Is my metabolism now entirely different?_

…_I wonder where Slade is right now. And Rose. I wish—I wish we were all back in a ryokan. Eating dinner, talking, thinking about getting ready for bed. In bed. Making love, but quietly in case Rose isn't asleep yet. _

_I don't want to die. I don't want to change. I am becoming something else, and I—am afraid_.

Wanting to be a yuki-onna was a thing of childhood and make believe, not the desire of a grown woman with family, and a home, and a future.

It was too much to bear.

Every internal wall broke at once, and she…did not cry. Not when her tears threatened to tear her corneas as they froze on contact with the air. Instead she screamed, wailed, howled out her anguish into the storm, which swallowed every sound she made as it came out of her mouth. It was bigger than she was, stronger, louder.

After a while she simply stopped. What was the point? The storm didn't care, nor the night, nor the winter. She was just so tired.

She was expecting more dream-memories, and she was not disappointed.

It liked being a little girl. It didn't have to hunt for food. People brought it to her, cut up and cooked, easy to chew and digest. People bathed her and hugged her and sang her songs. They taught her to speak, combed her hair and played games with her. Being human was so good, in fact, that she didn't want to give it up when winter came again. Yet it didn't want to give up the joy of racing over the world in the form of wind, or creating the silent stillness of falling snow. How could It be both human and the soul of snow? She decided to stay a little girl.

That winter there was no snow, nowhere near the settlement. The days were cold and short and dry, the nights long, and colder still. The Long Heat came, and the plants and trees dried up and died, for lack of snowmelt water. The animals that should have come to feed on the plants went elsewhere.

People in the settlement starved. People in the settlement _died_. People she knew. People she…loved. That had never happened before. She felt no attachment to the pack of wolves or even the colony of monkeys. Winter could be cruel, but the summer was crueler still. Loss, grief, pain—. So much simpler to be the ice that rimed the pond, the flurry that began the snowfall. So much easier.

That decided her. That winter, it would do as it had always done. It would consume what was left of the current host—not much, after that year's famine and drought-give the area a fine, deep winter, and take another host when the summer—that was, the Long Heat—returned. Summer was a human word, and it did not want to be human anymore.

But it didn't work. She could not consume the body she wore. Perhaps because she had been in it for too long. Perhaps because she had come to think of it as herself. Whatever the reason, she was still human. But the winter was coming, and without snow, the rest of the people-the rest of her family—would die. So she tried something else: a new host. Sending her power out over the first animal she could find, a small weasel—she froze it solid, killing it—instead.

It seemed like a horrible mistake, but when she pulled her power back—its vital essence came with it. With that life flooding through her, she could be both human and the snow…

That winter the snow was lovely, peaceful and deep, tucking the whole world in with a fluffy blanket, like a mother putting her children to bed at night. But the girl was not among the villagers; she watched from a cave above them on the mountain. The power showed; it made her skin pure white, turned her lips blue, and ice fog poured off her. It frightened her family, her people, but her heart did not turn against them. She lived on the mountain, and grew up there. The years passed, and all the people she knew were gone, died of disease, or childbirth, of falling in the lake or being mauled by a bear, and a few of them simply of old age. She had not aged, though. She simply grew up. She knew how to draw the power in now, and conceal it.

One day she decided to go down off the mountain and talk to people again, now that there was no one left who remembered her. She had all her old powers of charm and calm and allure, and she had grown up tall and straight, with skin almost as pale as snow. They made her welcome among them, and it was not long before she had suitors. She chose one. Within a year, she bore a child.

It was a girl.

* * *

Deathstroke returned to the Republic of Korea (which on paper, he had never left) exhausted, filthy, cold, hungry, and rather richer than he had been when he set out over a week before. He hadn't slept for more than three hours at a stretch in that time, and not every night at that. Although he had been sleeping that irregularly for more than twenty years now and was used to it, the last three months, during which he had been sleeping every night thanks to Yukie, had brought it home to him exactly how much the lack of sleep pissed him off and made him one of the most ill-tempered sons-of-bitches on the planet. It really put him in a mood for killing something.

But although that mode was useful, now he was ready to be done with it, for the time being. A sumptuous meal, a long soak in an onsen, and then to sleep a solid eight hours with Yukie nestled into the futons beside him—that was what he wanted. He was ready to get back to being Slade Wilson. For the moment, he would have to settle for something hot and filling in his stomach, a quick shower, and the empty bed in the room in the safe house where he left his personal effects.

After a dinner of short ribs in some sauce that made him gnaw every speck of meat off the bones, he went to the safe house and wearily slung the duffle with his armor on the bed, then showered. In his suitcase, he found his social phone, and noticed that Rose had left him seventeen messages to Yukie's five. He began listening to them, beginning with the oldest ones first. The first four days worth were full of chatty news about what they were doing, how much they missed him—and a detailed description of _exactly_ how much Yukie missed him, and in what ways, that brought a smile to his face.

Then: "Dad? Something bad's happened. Yukie's brother showed up—." His daughter went on to explain what happened. "—so either _he_ drugged and abducted her or somebody abducted them both. The only reason I say somebody else might have been involved is that I found a sketch Yukie did of Ra's Al Ghul at the scene. I concealed it from the police. Anyhow, that's it—except, I'm really, really worried. I wish you were here. I guess that's it. I'll leave messages when I have news to report."

Slade stopped his voice mail, called Yukie's phone. It went to voice mail. He immediately called Rose.

"Dad! Where are you?" she exploded in his ear. "Yukie's still missing, she hasn't answered her phone in days and it's still storming. I'm so _afraid_—."

"I just got back and got your first message. Report," he said, hoping to stave off the inevitable sobbing until he had the facts.

She told him about dealing with skeptical police officers who delayed doing anything for hours until the brother was found unconscious in his SUV, with a trail leading away cross country: someone had walked away, but the storm came before they could find whoever it was.

"Yukie's brother Ichiro came to about half an hour ago. He's saying he just happened to be in the area and stopped by to take her for a drive. He doesn't know _anything_ about how the tea he gave her was full of crushed up sleeping pills,_ or_ the bottle with pill residue in his pocket, _or_ why he traveled hours on a train and then rented an SUV and drove all the way here for any other reason than to see his sister. He's a very bad liar, but the problem is, if he doesn't tell the truth soon—he may not be _able_ to remember. The carbon monoxide poisoning might wipe out whatever he knew."

"That won't matter. If he doesn't, his parents will." Slade gritted his teeth.

"Haruko doesn't know anything," Rose said. "All she did was overshare. Nobody who knew her would ever tell her something they wanted kept secret. She asked me to tell you she was sorry, she didn't know this would happen. She looked you up on line, so she knows who you are."

"I won't hurt Haruko or her children," he promised. "Where are you now?"

"At the hospital where Ichiro's being cared for. The storm is still going on—there's been fifty-six inches of snow so far, and hurricane four level winds. It hit forty below an hour ago and there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Yukie's still out there in it. I know because I talked to her last night. Sh—she said to remember this trip and that I was loved…."

"Rose—Rose, I need you to hold together. We'll find her, Rose. There's that GPS tracker in the zipper pull on her jacket. She's dressed for the cold, and she has more experience in arctic temperatures than nearly anyone else on Earth. _We'll find her_."

"I precogged that you were going to say that," she said, gulping. Her voice was still squeaky with tears. "Anyhow, they still can't send out any search parties because the storm's still so bad. Even the Titans can't get anywhere—that's right, I didn't tell you they're here. We're doing stuff around the hospital to help. A—anyway, Yukie hasn't answered her phone in twenty-four hours. She said she was going to leave you a message, too."

"I think she did, but I haven't listened to it yet. Stay there at the hospital. I'm on my way. I will be there as soon as I can. Keep_ them_ from doing anything idiotic—if you can." The Titans, separately, were not irredeemable, but collectively, all that youth and idealism made his head hurt.

"But _how _are you going to get here?" she asked.

"Victor Fries," he replied. "Remember, he's in Tokyo working on their giant creature problem. He used his own aircraft to get here."

"Oh—and it's adapted for use in really extreme conditions! I forgot about him! That's great! But what about Ra's Al Ghul?"

"Priorities," he said. "First we find Yukie, then deal with the family, then with Ra's as necessary. Goodbye for now—I have to get this in motion."

"Bye, Dad—and hurry!"

There was a part of him that whispered: _this is why I'm better off without anyone in my life. Anyone at all. They die, they turn on you, they disappoint, disappear_…

But then there was this truth which countered it: in the two months he had spent with Yukie and his daughter, he had been happy, too, and he was not a man to whom happiness came easily or naturally.

He went to the last of Yukie's messages to him, and played it.

"Hello, Slade. By now I'm sure you've listened to Rose's messages. I am somewhere on Hakkoda-san. You remember how surprised I was when you told me I was not entirely human? I should not have been. My grandmother left me a secret message encoded in a letter. It said that if I wanted to find out what I was I should give up every earthly thing and go to Hakkoda-san before the plum blossoms come out."

She paused and then went on, "But every earthly thing includes you and Rose, and I could not give up the two of you. Especially you. I chose _you_. I chose Rose. But for all that I intended not to do this, here I am, all the same. Now that I am here, now that I'm drawing nearer to the place, I can feel that something is happening to me. I don't know what will come of it—but whatever may happen, please don't hold Haruko accountable.

"This is what happened: my brother Ichiro showed up at the ski resort, saying he had to talk to me. He gave me tea laced with sleeping pills, then told me a story about how we are descended from the Shinobi and an ancestor of ours made a deal with a foreigner to try and breed the powers back into our family line.

"The foreigner called himself 'Shutan Doji', from the tale of the Demon's Head. Ra's Al Ghul means 'the head of the demon'. Ichiro confirmed this when I drew him a picture of Ra's. I was to be the repayment of that debt. However, he crashed his SUV before he could get to whatever rendezvous they set up. I do wonder if Ra's knew what my family was up to; why would he be grooming me to work for him if he could simply claim me?

"Now for that which I do not want to say, that I wish I did not have to say: that if this is the end of everything, then I spent the last weeks of my life with the people I would have chosen above all others, doing exactly what I would have wanted to do.

"We have never said 'I love you' to each other. When I think of everything that has passed between us, it seems like the last thing we need to say. A superfluity. Because every time I said something to make you laugh, that sounded to me like 'I love you'. When you fall asleep with me, and you snore like you do, that too is 'I love you.' When we joke in French, 'Where is the catastrophe?' 'Right here'.—'I love you.' Certainly when we're making love, that is 'I love you'. When I suggested that Rose stay in Japan—when you decided to come to Japan with me in the first place, when you shouted 'Get down!' and shoved me out of the way of the rocket in the restaurant that night—. 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'

"Perhaps the night we met, when you held out your hand and offered, 'Peace', and I returned it—maybe that was the first time. In any case, we hardly ever seem to say anything else to each other. It seems like the last thing I need say to you is 'I love you.'

"But then that is the point. If this is the last thing I ever say to you, then—.

"I love you, Slade Wilson."

Into the silence that followed, he whispered, "I love you, too."

* * *

A/N: A double length chapter. Thank you to my readers and of course my reviewers Dark Lord Dobby and Swordstitcher!


	49. Slade: An Intriguing Proposition

When Victor Fries learned Yukie was missing in the mountains during a blizzard, he immediately offered any help he could give. "Ms. Kuwano has been more than merely an employee to me. She has been a friend, a better friend than I even knew until quite recently. I will save my congratulations until she is safe, but I understand that you and she are now engaged. When I learned _you_ were the 'someone' in her life, I was astonished, to say the least, but I respect her choices and I…want her to be happy."

"Thank you," Slade replied. "I know she regards you highly as well."

"How soon can you get to Tokyo, or shall I come get you?" was the scientist's next statement.

"It would be faster and more efficient if you came to me," Slade decided. Geographically he was closer to Mount Hakkoda, even though at the moment it would be easier for him to get to Tokyo, thanks to the storm.

"Very well," Fries said, and that was that.

Since it would be a few hours before the cryogenicist would reach him, Slade's next move was to contact Ra's, or rather, to set the wheels in motion since the head of the League of Assassins would answer if and when it pleased him to do so. Apparently it pleased him to do so in only a little over an hour.

"Which aspect of you do I have the honor of addressing, Deathstroke or Slade Wilson?" the ancient Assassin drawled.

"You're addressing the man whose fiancée was abducted by her family at your demand." Slade replied, reining in the snarl in his voice. "Something to do with resurrecting the Shinobi and an old debt to a 'Shutan Doji'. The abduction was botched by her idiot brother."

"Ms. Kuwano abducted? I gave no order to that effect," Ra's replied, and he sounded genuinely astonished. "I did not call in the debt. I wrote the Shinobi revival off as a bad investment over a hundred years ago, in all truth."

"Did you ever tell them that?" Slade shot back.

"No," Ra's replied, quite casually, "for I had another use for a controlled breeding program in Japan, and Ms. Kuwano is the result of it, as it so happens. You know about her grandmother, I assume?"

"Yes. She was a natural long-lifer."

"Indeed. She lived to be well over two hundred, as it happened. I hoped to breed another and I specifically wanted a woman. I did not know the program had born fruit until the night Ms. Kuwano appeared at the Jian Wu competition. She looks remarkably like her grandmother. Then I had to watch as the two of you met, courted each other, and made your vows to each other. In blood, no less. Most people spread that out over more than one day, let alone one Jian Wu duel. I was quite put out," The Assassin certainly sounded peeved.

"Wha-you mean you wanted-" Slade could hardly believe the inference he was drawing.

"I have had scores of wives and concubines over the last four hundred and thirty odd years," he said, matter-of-factly. "Almost without exception, I lose them just as they are becoming interesting as people. If you think people under forty are childish and empty-headed now, wait until you have two centuries behind you. It is no matter that this particular woman chose you over me. I am patient. I have to be. Besides, who is to say she will not tire of you in a decade or two?"

"If that was what you wanted, why didn't you court her grandmother?" Slade asked.

"Her grandmother was a courtesan. Ordinarily that would not bother me, provided she was in good health, but she was not merely a courtesan, she was an oiran. The term translates as 'castle-toppler'. It means she was one of a very few who were expensive enough to bankrupt a kingdom. In other words, she was a walking case of insatiable greed, as much so at a hundred and fifty as she was at fifty. Not a character trait I find endearing, and certainly one I would find repellant over time, no matter how charming she was otherwise," Ra's replied.

"Then what did you want to hire Yukie to do? She thought you wanted a nanny for your grandson."

"That is not far off the mark," Ra's said, "and it ties in with who I suspect of calling in the Kuwano debt in my name."

"Your daughter Talia," Slade concluded.

"Yes. Damian, that is the lad's name, is four now. Thanks to his unprecedented manner of gestation, and the regimen she has set in raising and training him, he has never become attached to any human being, not his caregivers, not me, not even her! He has no imagination or curiosity whatsoever, and has no feelings of empathy, loyalty or affection. All in the name of raising him to be my successor, and the ultimate Assassin of all time! Given how he is being raised, and what she has planned for him in the future, he is like to prove a disaffected, slaughter-minded sociopath on a scale not seen since Gilles de Rais, Vlad Drakul, or Elizabeth Bathory. I gave her a year to amend matters, and she has not done so."

Privately Slade wondered if part of the outrage was based in Ra's Al Ghul's intention never to die and therefore never to need a successor, much less one who would surpass him. "I don't see how Yukie ties into this, if you don't want her to be his nanny."

"My plan involves you as well. I want the two of you to raise him as your own," Ra's stated.

"_**What?**_"

"You have exceptional capacity as a trainer and teacher in the arts of assassination, and based upon what I have learned and observed, Ms. Kuwano is the ideal, perhaps the only, person capable of instilling humanity in him without also instilling in him a mawkish sentimentality concerning the sanctity of life," Ra's continued. "Is Ms. Kuwano all right?"

"Ms. Kuwano is lost on Mount Hakkoda during the worst snowstorm since 1902," Slade snapped, "I'm about to leave on a search-and-rescue with the help of Victor Fries."

"That is unfortunate," Ra's commented. "If she is not found alive or is incapable of taking on the care of a four-year-old, then some other arrangement will have to be made. I would never entrust him to your care alone."

"Why do you think I would ever agree to this in the first place?" Slade countered.

"Because then, one day you will have the pleasure of informing Batman that you are the only father his son has ever known," Ra's replied.

Of course. Who else would Talia Al Ghul have chosen to father her child? "You are too shrewd, old man," Slade admitted, "Considering the fates of my sons, though, do you really want to risk it?"

"Batman is at least as risky a caregiver," his almost-Father-in-law stated. "Two of his Robins have died, even if one did come back, and the others have been taken hostage, shot, broken bones and been otherwise injured even more often than your sons were. I consider the risks balanced. You are preferable in that you at least have no ridiculous scruples about not taking lives. Besides, since you will be competing against Batman in this, I expect you will prove to be a model of fatherhood."

"Huh," Slade grunted, thinking. Yukie did want children... "Does the boy show promise?"

"An abundance of it. That is why I am so concerned." Ra's replied.

"All of this means nothing if Yukie isn't all right," Slade pointed out. "After that, we'll see."

"Indeed. I, in the meantime, will look into exactly what role Talia played in this. Fear not, she will be reproved appropriately. Until such time as Ms. Kuwano's fate is known, then." He ended the contact.

A/N: A short but significant chapter, I think you'll agree! This one has also been brewing for some time. My thanks to my "Guest" and to joshlamont!

In case you are not familiar with the history of Damian Wayne, I quote from the Wikipedia article:

Having grown up in a laboratory, Damian Wayne as a pre-adolescent is left by his mother in the care of his father, who previously was not aware of his son's existence. He is violent and self-important and was trained by the League of Assassins, learning to kill at a young age, which troubles the relationship with his father, who refuses to kill. However, the Dark Knight does care for his lost progeny. After the events of _Batman R.I.P._ and _Batman: Battle for the Cowl_, he takes up the identity of **Robin** at ten years of age, becoming the sixth person to use the Robin identity. He first worked with Dick Grayson before going to work alongside his father, upon the original's return to the role of Batman. He continued to serve as Robin until 2013's _Batman, Inc._ #8, in which he is killed by the Heretic, an agent of his mother and his own artificially-aged clone.

Yep, that's right. His own mother cloned him and artificially aged that clone, which went on to kill him. Moreover, by the time she says "Surprise, Bruce! This is yours! And I trained him to kill people!" he has become, (I quote,) precocious, spoiled, violent, malicious, arrogant, and vicious. Before the age of ten. Plus she only hands him over to Batman in order to disrupt his crimefighting. Not a candidate for Mother Of The Year.


	50. Yukie, Rose, Tim: The Breaking Storm

Before her daughter was even born, the first yuki-onna knew her child would also be a yuki-onna when she grew to womanhood, and when the time came, just as she had taught her how to sew hides together into garments, and how to bank a fire so the coals would last until the morning, she taught the girl how to feed, for without feeding she could not use her powers, and then how to race over the earth in the form of wind and call or cease snowstorms.

By that time, though, the yuki-onna had several children, both boys and girls, and all of them were as healthy, tall, and pale as their mother. Only the girls, though, could become yuki-onna. As time went on and she had grandchildren, her daughters' daughters were also yuki-onna, and sometimes the sons' daughters, too. After that it became hard to keep track of them. Also, her children and their children were mortal—they lived much longer than most humans, but eventually they died. Only she went on, although she moved back into the mountains or sought out other human settlements after she had lived in one place too long.

She lived a very long time, but at last there came a time when the world had changed so much it no longer made sense to her. She had loved, lived with and lost many consorts, borne many children, and the years piled up upon her like the snow upon the village roofs, until it seemed she might give way under the weight of all of them. She wanted to stop remembering, to be free of time and her body as she was long, long ago. Yet she could not, did not die.

So she went to the kitsune, and spoke to their kami. Inari told her this: _you were the first of your kind, so you are the kami-yuki, the spirit of snow, and spirits do not die. There will always be a spirit of snow in the world, but it need not be you. Choose one of your daughters or granddaughters, take her up into the mountains, and—._

Yukie woke. She had seen all of that in a dream as if she were watching from the sky, and when she woke, she was _in_ the sky. Flying? No. _Not _flying. She was the wind and the snow it drove before it. Her first reaction was not disbelief but panic. _Am I dead? How do I undo this? I never wanted this!_

In that initial fright, she roiled around in the storm, tearing over the rocks and whipping through the trees. _No! NO! I WILL FIGHT THIS!_

Then she saw a vivid patch of red tucked in between the rocks, and she swooped down to discover it was her ski pants and the rest of her clothing. Coalescing back into a human form was instinctive, and she found herself standing on the mountainside entirely naked but otherwise herself—other than that she too now looked as though she had been sculpted out of snow. Yet there was something changed in her, something missing, and she couldn't tell exactly what.

Picking up her ski pants, she shook the snow off them, then froze as she examined the stain, the darker red against the scarlet of the fabric. It was blood. Holding them up against herself, she frowned at where the stain would have been-and there were stains on the camisole, too. Yet her flesh was whole and unbroken, like unglazed porcelain.

Was there really any need to put the clothes back on? Traveling up to the peak as a gust of wind would be much easier than climbing up, inch by grudging, painful inch. There was only one thing she did not want to lose—the engagement ring Slade had given her. Well, if she zipped it into the belt pouch of the pants, and put them somewhere that they would not get lost or buried…

She could not find the ring. It was not in either of the hand wraps, or any of her other clothes, or anywhere around the spot where she had spent the night—nowhere she could find it, at least.

Another sadness, one last thing lost to her.

'**_We are not like other people. What we are, I do not know, but I was told, years ago, that if I wanted to know what I was and why, I should give up every earthly tie and ascend Mount Hakkoda before the plum trees blossom in the spring_**_.' _Those were her grandmother's words.

_And I have done all of that, although I no longer desired it. I did not choose this, but the choice was taken from me. I wanted, I still want, to live with Slade and Rose in the house on the lake. I found everything I wanted in this world and it was taken from me, ripped away as soon as I held it in my hands._

_None of that matters anymore. None of it is possible anymore._

'**_Find me at the top of that peak, and you will know_**_,' the yuki-onna said._

_Yes. I will find her._

_And I will tear out her heart as she has torn out mine_.

She had realized what was wrong, and the loss of her engagement ring was nothing compared to it. She could not feel her heart beat, not even when she pressed her hand against her chest. The yuki-onna had literally torn out her heart while she slept. Perhaps she did not need it to live, changed as she was, but a heart was more than simply a muscle for pumping blood. It had a greater significance than that.

The kami of kitsune, Inari, had told the original yuki-onna, _'Take her up into the mountains, and there you must tear out both your heart and hers. Place your immortal heart in her breast, and take her mortal heart into your own. Then you will be able to die and she will become the kami-yuki. There must always be a kami-yuki, or else there will be no snow anywhere upon the Earth._'

The yuki-onna had torn out Yukie's heart, but not given her the immortal heart in return.

Becoming part of the blizzard again was equally instinctive, and Yukie tore up into the sky like swords into flesh and bone.

_Where? Where is she?_

How could she find someone else in the storm when they were both part of its winds and its fury? The answer was: stop the storm. Calm the winds, banish the snow, let the clouds disperse—and then find whatever meteorological anomaly was left.

* * *

For Victor Fries, forty below was shirtsleeve weather. Literally. For once, the scientist was the only person _not_ in heavy environmental gear. He wore a sort of singlet over the top half of his body, and dark pants and boots on the lower half of him, plus goggles to keep wind and snow out of his eyes, but that was all, and he looked as though he was quite comfortable when the door of his aircraft opened out onto the hospital parking lot.

"Please, come in," he invited the six Titans. "I'm sorry the cabin isn't heated. I can either fly in this weather or warm the compartment. There isn't enough power for both."

"It's okay," Rose assured him. "I'm just so glad you came and you're helping." She glanced into the cabin, seeing two other people: her father, and somebody who might be Nora Fries inside a lot of protective gear. "Hello," the girl greeted them.

Nora replied with a hello of her own and a wave; her father only nodded.

Slade Wilson's mood could not be told by his face, which was masked, but by his body language, and it wasn't good at all. He looked like a high tension cable on a suspension bridge, one that could be about to snap and bisect anyone who was in the way of the whiplash. This wasn't good—if Yukie wasn't all right, if she was…if she was dead—what then? Her father didn't deal well with grief and loss. He didn't really deal with them at all, he just went out and found somebody to hurt, or, or, or… to kill.

The Kuwanos were the first, most obvious target on his list, and then Ra's, most likely—and given how many people who were in the League of Assassins, chances were that her father would probably get killed, at least temporarily. Once he resurrected, he'd have…episodes. She knew the way it went, and it was not good. Not. At. All. Her heart hurt at the thought of losing him like that.

"Dad," she reached out and touched his sleeve as the other Titans found places to sit or stand, "you know you have _me_…right?"

For a moment, that grimness lifted, and he turned his head toward her. "I know, Rose."

"I mean, I'd even come during the summer. Forget about what I said, before," she offered.

He'd extracted the promise that she would come and train with him that summer if he let her stay in Japan with them, and she added the condition that she would only if Yukie were there. Now she would do it anyway, to help keep him from…parachuting into war zones and taking on entire armies, just as an example of things he might do. And to have somebody to remember Yukie with, too.

"It'll be all right," he told her. "The GPS is sending a good, strong signal. She's as good as found."

But the words rang hollow. She heard that, too.

* * *

Yukie scoured the top of the peak, looping back and forth upon her winds, raising great plumes of loose snow as she went. Where? Where was the other yuki-onna?

She found a cave. _The _cave, from the genetic memories of that first yuki-onna. She streamed down into it, changed back into human form, the better to see what it was like. Disembodiment did not lend itself to seeing well at close range, she was learning.

_If I cannot have my own heart back, I will take the immortal heart from her. I want to live. I will live._

Looking around, she could see that it was inhabited, after a fashion, by someone who used her human form at least part of the time. There was a fire pit with a wood pile not far away, there a neat pile of patched cotton kimonos, worn, faded and threadbare to the point of near transparency. That pile of branches under the bearskins had to be a bed, and there were pottery jars with uncooked rice and other dried foodstuffs near the fire. So at least sometimes she ate cooked food and—yes, that was aged sake in that jar—drank as well.

But there was also evidence of the other way she ate, as there was a pit in the back full of skins and bones. Some of the skins looked…yes, there were human remains among them. She staggered back.

_I should not be so shocked. I have killed people. Slade kills people for money. Should that not be more horrible than this?_ She wanted to laugh and cry both. _I have become a vampire, but a much more efficient one than a blood-drinker_. _They waste __**so much**__ of their food_.

Then her eyes fell upon the shrine. It was somewhat like the household shrine one might find in any Japanese household, with soul tablets to memorialize each member of the family who had passed away within living memory. The tablets remained as long as someone who knew them when they were alive, yet lived. When the last person who remembered them passed away, the tablet was removed, and the tablet for the newly deceased took its place.

There were hundreds, literally hundreds of them. Too many to count without losing track. Most were so aged they were unreadable. _These are all members of her family. Sons, daughters, husbands… how long has she lived?_

_How long will I live? Is __**this**__ my future?_

Another thing Yukie noticed—there was nothing of the twenty-first century in that cave, nor even of the twentieth. Nothing modern, no plastic, no glass, very little metal, and what there was, looked ancient.

She could not bear to look at it any longer. Shifting back to her wind-form, she whipped out of the cave and back up into the sky.

* * *

Tim was looking out the window at the storm when it suddenly ceased. It didn't just cease, it absolutely vanished, leaving a clear blue sky. All around him, the others exclaimed at the change.

"This is unnatural," Mr. Freeze said from his place at the controls. "Is one of you responsible?" He cast a glance back at them.

"Uh—no," Tim replied, looking at Raven, who was hanging on to the aircraft seat with both hands, her nails digging into the fabric. She was not paying attention to what was going on around her, but to some inner sense.

"It's not just happening _now_," she said. "It just went critical." Tim grimaced, which was lost due to the fact that his entire face was covered by a balaclava.

"What did?" Rose asked. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, nothing," Beast Boy said, trying to distract her. "Hey, did you know there actually are green polar bears? It's due to global warming. They get algae in their fur, see, and—."

"I think it is wrong not to tell her," Starfire cut in. "To tell them, that is."

"Tell us what?" Slade's voice cut in, and he leaned in, looming over the Titans. Gar audibly gulped.

"Friend Raven has sensed that there is to be a new Snow Elemental," Starfire said, guilelessly, "If we had known before that your betrothed's name meant Lady Snow, we would have warned you this was coming."

"What?" Slade fumed, clearly on the verge of an explosion, but Rose interrupted.

"A Snow Elemental? You mean, like the anthropomorphic personification of snow?" She didn't sound angry; rather she sounded like the light was dawning on something in her head. "And it's going to be Yukie? _That's_ what's going on?"

"Uh—well, yeah." Raven said.

"Then it's going to be okay! It all makes sense! I've been reading up on yokai for weeks," Rose reached out and put a hand on her father's arm. "What did Yukie call herself the night you met? Yuki-Onna. A Yuki-Onna is tall and beautiful, with skin like snow, just like Yukie. She lives in the mountains and loves the winter, just like Yukie. She can be fierce and terrible, but with her family, she's loving and gentle, _just like Yukie_. Dad, we were looking all over Japan for yokai, but all we had to do was turn around. One was with us all along!"

Slade looked at his daughter intently and then looked to Raven, "Is that it? Yukie is becoming a Snow Elemental, a yuki-onna?" His voice had a new note in it. It sounded like hope.

"It's not that simple," Raven admitted. "The old Snow Elemental isn't going to give up the powers without a fight. She's ancient, her power has accumulated over a thousand years, and she's not sane. There's a war going on down there—and your fiancée—she may not win."


	51. Yukie, Slade: Black As Ebony

A/N: I made certain changes and edits to chapter 50 because I realized it would work better that way. They are substantial enough that you should go back and reread it. I apologize-I don't like to make significant changes after a chapter has been posted, but this time I believe it called for it.

* * *

Without a heart, mortal or immortal, Yukie could not become fully human. Without a heart, she could not live in the human world, disguised or not. Her heart was missing because the yuki-onna had ripped it out. Now she meant to return the favor.

Certain stories, the fairy tales which are at the heart of the human psyche, have been told and retold so often that where they came from has been forgotten completely. They change to fit the country or the village where the storyteller lives. People may stumble over the tale of Cinderella in a collection of Asian tales and think , 'Oh, they must have gotten that from some European traveler.', when in fact it is the other way around. Her slippers were not glass, in the old tales; they were fur. It was the French who caused that confusion, when someone mistook 'vair', fur, for 'verre', glass.

Forget about the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Madame d'Aulnoy-they were simply the first ones to write the stories down and have them printed. The tales came into being millennia before.

Most tales change the description of the princess to match the local standards of beauty. So in one place, the princess may have golden hair and in another, brown or red. Except for one. In one fairy tale, the princess is always described the same way. Always. That particular story begins:

'Once upon a time, a queen who was with child sat at her window with her sewing in her lap, watching the snowflakes drift down like feathers. While she was watching the snow, she jabbed her finger with the needle, drawing blood. The blood stained the white cloth she was working on, and seeing how beautiful the red looked against the white, and both against the black wood of the window frame, she said, "How I wish that my daughter would have skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony."'

And in that tale, there is _always_ an evil queen who calls for the heart of the young princess. What was forgotten is **_why._**

Her father watched as Raven's news dampened Rose's elation, but his daughter staunchly announced, "We'll be there to help her, though. She won't have to do it alone."

"I guess not-but wait a minute. About this yokai thing-is she not a normal human? And did you know?" Raven asked.

"I knew," Deathstroke replied. "The night we met, Yukie tested as 'Not Nonhuman.' Now we know what that meant; she had no idea at the time." His manner deflected any further attempt to draw him out.

"So anyway, you know something about this Snowy-yuki-onny-elemental business. What exactly are we looking at?" Cyborg asked Rose. "And what's a yokai?"

"I've read three books about yokai," she replied, and her father tuned them out.

He sat there among the children and listened to their chatter without hearing it. Yukie, missing, Yukie lost to him, dead, dying... Part of him did not care at all, and that was the part which usually ruled his actions and decisions.

He'd gotten what he wanted out of the relationship-Rose had agreed to come back and train with him again, even without Yukie, and he in turn had learned how to relate to his daughter better. Insofar as his goal was concerned, he didn't need Yukie anymore. That was the part of him which could calculate the exact angle for a head shot without thinking about it, the part which automatically looked for attackers whenever he entered a room, even in his own house.

Then there was the other part of him, which did feel, and that part of him felt Yukie's absence keenly.

Slade Wilson's answer to dealing with pain, loss and grief was to compartmentalize it. Lock it away. Wall it off, like Montresor did to Fortunato in that Poe story he read in Junior High, _The Cask of Amontillado_. He knew he was not unique in this; many American men still dealt with their emotions that way, binding them as the Chinese upper classes bound their daughters' feet so they wouldn't grow, but he took it to greater extremes than most.

It began when a five year old Slady sat in the corner of the charity ward where his mother died, a room which stank of urine, cheap disinfectant and some vague steam-table food smell. He rolled a toy car back and forth, winding around the legs of a chair, making a quiet vroom-vroom with his mouth. He hears the grown-ups around him talking, but it washes over him, just sounds.

(Such a shame she must have been a pretty thing and no more than twenty-three-twenty-four so young to pass like that pneumonia wasn't it? Might as well say poverty malnutrition and overwork)

_(Lookit that's her lil boy isn't he just adorable with those curls and all he's been so good I don't think he understands yet)_

_I'm sorry Mr. Wilson but your wife passed away about twenty minutes ago_ says the doctor.

_**Shit what the fuck am I supposed to do with the brat now?**_

Daddy's toe kicks the chair leg and Slady flinches. When Daddy is around, which isn't much, he has to be very very quiet and good. No matter what happens. No matter what he hears.

_I can't answer that what I need to know is what do you want done with the remains? Which funeral home?_ the doctor asks

_**Funeral home? Do I look like I have that kind of money? Look isn't this a teaching hospital? Don't you buy cadavers for dissection?**_ Daddy replies

_You want to sell us your wife's body_ says the Doctor

_**I got the kid to feed don't I?**_

_Selling human remains is not legal in this state_ answers the doctor

_**Then look let's say I just donate her to you for, like, science I can do that right?**_ Daddy asks

_Yes I'll get the paperwork_ says the doctor, who walks away.

Slady was bored. He looked up at his father. "When's Mommy gonna be better?" he asked, very carefully.

"She's as better as she's ever goin ta be. Look, Mommy's dead, okay? She's, uh, inna better place."

Dead? Dead like Jimmy's puppy down the block, the one that got run over? He remembered when that happened, the way the tire smooshed the little dog's soft body. He remembers the mashed blood and bones, the sharp whine that cut off so suddenly. He remembers the smell, and how Jimmy screamed.

He knew what dead meant.

"Mommy's _dead_?" He started to cry, and his daddy cuffed him around the ear.

"Look, I don't wanna hear it. Suck it up and shut up. Be a man. Tough it out. Crying is for women and sissy boys. Is that what you are, a sissy boy?" his daddy asked him.

"No," he says, gulping. He had no idea exactly what a sissy boy was, just that it was something bad, so he didn't want to be it. So he stopped crying. He sucked it up. He toughed it out. Except sometimes when he was alone at night while his father was out somewhere, he sobbed into his pillow. He took his grief and his pain and locked it away, walled it up somewhere in the back of his head.

Seven years later, when his father shoved him out of the car and drove away without looking back, he toughed it out again.

And then again in the group home when the matron locked him in a closet for two days straight, for raiding the kitchen after hours.

And when things...happened to him that he would rather be drawn and quartered than admit to _anyone_, ever, things that left him bleeding from places no one should ever bleed from, sick and horrified...he toughed that out too.

And when his commanding officer ordered them to eliminate an entire village suspected of harboring the Viet Cong. Everyone: women, children, elderly people, infants in their mothers' arms. It was the wrong village, as it turned out. That did not make anyone less dead.

He had volunteered to test the serum which changed him so drastically both physically and mentally. It seemed to change his personality as well, but what Adeline had never understood was that it had only brought out what was there all along, repressed and suppressed until he could act and seem as normal as anyone. All the time she had known him, she had never known _him_: she had known the normal-seeming All-American guy he pretended to be, making up a new background, lying to her, acting the part.

It didn't mean he didn't love her-if anything, it meant he loved her so much he would do anything to keep her. But after the serum, he couldn't keep up the façade any longer. She stuck it out with him for years all the same, increasingly angry. When she screamed at him, telling him, 'You ruin everything you touch, every relationship. You've destroyed our lives, our sons' lives, our family. You're rotten inside-no better than an animal!'-he never defended himself, because she had every right to. When she shot him, he didn't retaliate. When she divorced him, he didn't contest it or claim any of her fortune. She had good cause. He was toxic-as a husband, as a father, as a friend.

Around him, the conversation was still going on. Rose told the group, "The story is that the first yuki-onna was a spirit that lived on the moon and came down to Earth because it wanted to see what it was like, but it got stuck here. All of the rest are descended from that one, and there must have been a _lot_ of them at one time, because there are stories about them all over Japan, wherever it snows in the winter.

"They can control and create snow and ice, manipulate the weather, transform into an icy gust of wind, shoot ice projectiles, flash-freeze things, they're strong enough to pick up a man bigger than they are over their heads and toss him off a cliff, plus they have some kind of mental powers or can cast illusions to lure people to their deaths in the snow."

"Okay," Cyborg said, sounding dubious, "but _why_ do they lure people to their deaths in the snow?"

"Um, well-the story is that they're like living vampires, only they live off life energy, not blood. Yuki-onna freeze their prey solid and consume their vital essence. It can't be the _only_ way they eat, because there are also accounts of them living among humans for years. Somebody would have noticed that they never ate regular food or that the neighbors were all freezing to death one-by-one," Rose temporized. "Nobody ever noticed they weren't human, not even their husbands or children, except that they didn't age."

"It sounds like you want to have it both ways-that they're dangerous killers and nice people both. Does it really work like that?" Cyborg prodded.

"What about the armed forces?" Rose countered. "Trained soldiers who've seen combat are dangerous killers, and they can still be good people."

He smiled to himself. _Thank you, Rose_. He hadn't done too badly with her.

His first post-divorce relationship, with Vigilante, an ex-cop turned costumed adventurer named Patricia, had only driven home how toxic he was, and then trying to raise Rose on his own finished him on trying to have a relationship with anyone.

Sometimes he looked at all the people around him in the world, effortlessly having lives, relationships, families, and wondered-_why can't I have that? What makes me so different?_

Then he would swallow another chunk of rage and sorrow, tough it out, be a man about it. He was no more than a killing machine, and he might as well accept that. Accept it? Take pride in it. Be the most efficient, effective killing machine on the planet, and never mind the hollow hunger for companionship. For love.

Then one night, he entered a Jian Wu competition and wound up meeting Yukie. Somehow it worked. It helped that she had a serene, imperturbable temperament, a lively sense of humor, and, as it turned out, believed that being a professional mercenary and assassin was a reasonable and intelligent career choice.

So he, Slade Wilson was in a relationship, a good relationship, a _stable_ relationship and how the hell did that happen? He hadn't bothered to lie to her or pretend to be anything he wasn't, and she didn't judge him or come into it with a script she expected him to follow without even giving him a copy. Perhaps that was it. Or maybe it was simply love.

He loved Yukie, and he needed her. With Yukie in his life, he felt like a human being. He felt normal. If it turned out that she had to freeze people from time to time and consume their 'vital essence', then he'd just have to find somebody who richly deserved it. She was his heart.

Nora commented, "I'm still...getting used to things like this. Here Yukie is becoming this Snow Elemental Yuki-onna thing and the world's not ending. You're worried for her, of course, but you're also really excited about the powers she's getting."

"Well, it _is_ really cool," Rose said. "I mean, she had to live with getting overheated and not being able to compete professionally at Jian Wu because of it, so it's great that she won't have to be sidelined anymore."

"Oh, I saw the video of that!" Nora exclaimed. "It was-amazing. Inspiring. I'm working out a pas de deux based on it. I might not be able to dance professionally anymore, but I can still do choreography for others. But if Yukie hasn't been competing at Jian Wu, how did she do so well that night? I know she only won on a technicality."

"She practiced on her own," Rose said. "Lately she's been sparring with Dad. Heh, we went to visit her old dojo and her sensei chewed her out for not keeping up to his standards. Then she beat his best current student and he chewed her out for still not being the best in the world, let alone the best of all time. But the way he looked, he was pretty pleased with her anyway."

"I can't set us down any closer to the source of the GPS signal than this," Victor Fries announced, landing the aircraft. "We'll have to go on foot from here. The only difficulty will be the lack of a hand-held tracker."

"That's not a problem," Cyborg tapped his head. "Got one built in. S'why they call me 'Cyborg'."

"Very well, then. You shall lead the way."

The youth did, taking them on a trek around and through the snow chasms, until they reached an outcropping of rock where Yukie's crimson jacket lay on top of the snow, neatly folded. An arctic fox sat near it, its white fur almost as white as the snow on which it sat, watching the group approach with great interest.

Rose went over to the garment, and checked its pockets. "Here's her phone. It still has some charge-."

"Rose, get back," her father warned, unholstering his handgun.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because a fox out here in the wilds that has no fear of humans isn't normal. It's probably rabid. Sick, anyway-." Slade took careful aim.

"Wait, Dad! Look at its tails!" Rose exclaimed, pointing at the beast. "It's not just a fox, it's a kitsune. Another yokai!"

It had swung its back end around, and now proudly fanned out no less than five long, handsome tails for them to see, looking back at them with an expectant expression.

"Huh," Deathstroke grunted. "Are you another one of these yokai? Prove it. Do something a normal fox couldn't do."

It yapped, then changed color, from white to russet, the rusty hue suffusing it like a spill mopped up with a paper towel.

"Okay, you have me convinced," he said, returning his weapon to its holster. "So what are you doing here?"

It yapped again, then dashed a few paces and stopped to look back at them. Seeing that they weren't moving, it ran back, then dashed away again in the same direction. Finally it rolled its eyes and nodded in the direction it had run toward.

"You have got to be kidding me," Slade said. "Is Lassie trying to tell us Timmy fell down the old well?" he asked sarcastically.

"Hah!" Victor Fries laughed briefly, "I'm not sure a Japanese fox, however supernatural, would get the reference. Besides, this is a male fox. Its intentions, however, are clear. It does want us to follow it. This reminds me of certain books I read back when I was a boy-talking, or at least, intelligent animals, magic, and quests." He sounded rather wistful, and his wife drew near to give him a quick hug.

"Let's see where he leads us," she said, and the group did so, following the kitsune wherever he might lead them, Rose with Yukie's jacket over her arm.

* * *

A/N: I have been dropping _Snow White_ references here and there for _**ages**_. I can hardly list how many. The first time Yukie appears, it's with an apple green scarf around her neck. Nora even thinks, 'Snow White, only Asian,' when they meet. Yukie's favorite perfume has green apple as its dominant note (it's Lush Cosmetics' 'So White', BTW, I didn't put that in because it seemed too obvious.) In this scene, there's Slade as the Prince, Rose as his attendant, and seven others. Not dwarves, I admit, but some of them are kids and smallish. Plus there are lots of other clues. Now I can cop to it. I assure you that Yukie will be more proactive in her own rescue than simply lying around in a glass coffin!

However, there will be NO singing with happy little bluebirds or adorable woodland creatures. Not even if the songs are 'Do You Want To Build a Snowman?' and 'Let It Go.'


	52. Yukie, Rose: Red As Blood

A/N: If this is the first time you have checked in on this story since the first of April, and you don't yet know I made some serious changes to both chapter 50 and 51, you should reread them before you proceed. Thank you.

* * *

The angle of the sun tinged the snow the luminous blue of moonstones; the day was passing into afternoon. This time, the yuki-onna was waiting at the peak, but Yukie circled around before becoming corporeal again in a spot where she could not be seen. She remembered the razor-ice claws which had laid her face open two days before, and then somehow she had also ripped the heart from Yukie's chest without the pain waking her. They had the same powers, but the yuki-onna was experienced and much more powerful. Going into battle literally naked and unarmed would be folly.

The only advantage she might have would be if she fought hand-to-hand. The yuki-onna did not move or look like a martial artist. Could she form butterfly swords out of ice, swords strong enough to fight with? If so, could she then keep the yuki-onna from turning them on her? Uncertain. As far as clothing or armor went, all she had to work with was…all around her. Reaching out with her newfound powers, she pulled ice and snow off the mountain, shaping it around her. Yukie had helped Slade on and off with his armor several times, and she had often heard him talk about armor design, what worked and what did not. Snow alone where she needed the greatest flexibility, small slivers of ice where more protection was needed, plates of ice in other places. She added flanges of razor-sharp ice to the bracers on her forearms, where she would flip a butterfly sword to strike with an inside elbow, formed a full-face mask from the clearest ice she could create.

As armor went, it was strange and primitive, but it would be some protection, anyway. Rather than entire swords, she fashioned yawara sticks out of icicles. Thus attired, she went to meet the yuki-onna.

Her ancestress stood at the very edge of a precipice, and the wind which yawned up from the crevasse had the nose scouring odor of either a hot spring or a volcano, like the breath of hell. She was examining something she held in her hand, and as Yukie approached, she saw the glint of gold in the sunlight. It was her engagement ring.

Half-turning, the yuki-onna said, "It is like ice that does not melt. I never saw anything like it before. A pretty thing. Was it costly?" Her voice was like icebergs grating together, and she spoke in a way that was nearly archaic, so Yukie answered in kind.

"It was a betrothal gift from my husband," Yukie replied. "So its worth is great to me, whatever its cost."

The yuki-onna looked her up and down. "You look quite the warrior. Your husband must be a great and powerful samurai."

"He is," Yukie replied, for in its way it was no more than truth.

"Ah, that one of my descendants should rise so high in the world! It makes me very proud." A flick of her wrist, and the ring flipped out of sight, down into the chasm. "That life is over. He will not have you back. There is no going back. I imagine you think yourself ill-used, divided from your lord as you are, stripped of your humanity, everything you know wrenched away from you."

Yukie did not so much as flinch. There was a great deal more at stake than a small piece of crystallized carbon, whatever its real or sentimental value. "I am here for a heart, either mine or the heart of winter, the heart of our ancestresses. I do not care which. Give me either of those, and I will call it fair."

"You will have neither," the yuki-onna snapped. "I have hidden one of them and have the other here," she pointed to her own breastbone. Again, she raked Yukie with her glare.

"It comes so easily to you, being a yuki-onna. It was near a year before I could banish the storm and shape ice and snow as you already do, and that was with Tsurara to instruct me. She it was who held the kami-yuki before me, and tarried a year to teach me before she gifted me with the burden. Hah, I thought her very strange and wild. She was the yuki-onna for more than three hundred years, and I have been the yuki-onna for three, near to four times as long. What must you think of me, infant that you are?"

"I think you are a being in pain, and I would help you if I could," Yukie replied. The yuki-onna's eyes were too bright, her smile a rictus-she was not sane. Her skin stretched painfully tight over her cheekbones.

"In pain? You barely know the meaning of the word!" With that, she slashed at Yukie, who sliced up with a forearm, the clear ice casting rainbows on the snow. The slice tore open the elder yuki-onna's hand, and the cut spurted blood over her armor, the drops falling frozen like a handful of pomegranate seeds.

The madwoman laughed, her wild hair an anti-halo around her face. "I'm leaking, I'm creaking!" Flinging out a hand, she cast a handful of ice-spikes at Yukie, who dodged, letting the missiles fly past. Ice shattered on ice and clattered to the ground. Darting in, she performed the Kingfisher move in reverse, beginning with the swoop and concluding with fast but disorienting strikes with her ice yawara at the nerve centers.

She was rewarded by a blood trickle from the yuki-onna's mouth, but the yokai retaliated by sending jagged discs of ice screaming at her, high-pitched as a mosquito's whine.

Yukie's years of Jian Wu practice made skillful dodging a reflex, done without thinking. She wheeled again, using the Serpent to counter the next volley of spikes, weaving in and out. She brought up her forearm with its blade-like flange, and now the yuki-onna's face was laid open.

Clapping a hand to her face, the yuki-onna staggered backward—to the edge. For that instant as she teetered, her face had a warmth and sweetness equal to the goddess Kannon. She could have righted herself. She could have transformed herself into wind and swept away to anywhere she wished. Instead she let herself fall.

A moment later, there was a horrible, meaty 'gunch'. Yukie dashed up to the cliff, looked down—there the yuki-onna was, impaled on an ice spike like a butterfly on a pin. The crevasse was full of spikes like it, and the yokai writhed in pain, groaning.

_She created this trap on purpose. Did she think I would be unable to change before I hit the spikes? Why didn't she save herself Or—was this her plan? _

Yukie transformed herself into wind, and went down to see if what she suspected was true.

The yuki-onna was alive, but only just. "It hurts," she gasped, clawing at the spike, "it hurts." Then she plunged her razor-like ice talons into her chest, and wrenched.

"At last…it's over," she said, and held out the bloody gob in her hand.

Yukie reached out, took it from her. It was, or it had been, part of a human heart. It was not the kami-yuki heart, the immortal heart of winter, but the one which had beaten in Yukie's chest since before she was born. Now it was shredded, mangled, a grisly lump of muscle and cords. Dead.

_This was her plan. She went to her death, leaving me here only half alive. She said she had hidden the other heart, but where?_

Calm. Calm. The kami-yuki heart was near; it was part of her, an unbroken matrilineal line from the first to the last—no, to the latest. It had taught how to be what she was in dreams, so it was close enough to reach her mind. That connection ran both ways; she must be close enough to reach it. Calm. Think of the connection as a silken thread—_there_. _That_ way.

* * *

The kitsune led them through ice canyons of stark but breathtaking beauty, and it would have been rough going if they had not brought snowshoes. Starfire had it the easiest, of course, for she could soar overhead, acting as their eyes.

"Damn, but it smells worse than the bathroom the day after enchilada night," Cyborg raised a hand to his face.

"Smells like home to me," the half-demoness Raven commented.

"There are lots of hot springs in the area," Rose explained. "That's what you're smelling. A lot of them are really good for the skin thanks to the minerals in the water, but, yeah, they do stink."

"Well, if your skin is any example, they ought to bottle that stuff and market it," Raven commented, "because it's cleared up a lot."

"Thanks," Rose said, automatically, but her eyes were on her father, whose body language still edged toward dangerous. "Uh, any more mystical signals coming in?"

"Right now there's so much mystic energy flowing around it's like—well, it's like the smell off those hot springs. It's so strong and there's so much of it I can't sense any variation. Um—if you don't mind my asking, what about this guy Kitaro? Gar was talking about him maybe joining the Titans."

"Kitaro? I think he'd make a good team member, but he'd need some help getting up to speed on the tech. His family's really traditional—if this were America, they'd be, like, Amish or something. No computers, no TV, barely even electricity. That's why he's staying with his grandparents while he goes to school, because in Tokyo he at least has access to stuff, not like at home. He only just got his first phone a few weeks ago, and he has to keep it hidden. As far as his powers and skills go, he has some natural abilities, and the rest of his magic is something called 'kuji-in'. He said it's based on nine fundamental spells and you can make them do practically anything once you have them down."

"I've heard of that," Raven said, sounding a little pleased. "The idea is to bring all the forces of the universe together to unite against evil. Uh—." She lowered her voice. "You haven't taken your eyes off your father. One to ten scale, what kind of trouble are we looking at if—." She left it unfinished.

"At least an eight," Rose replied, unhappily.

With the kind of timing she had come to expect, Starfire curved down out of the sky to tell them, "There is something you must see in the next canyon. I am very sorry."

"Uh-oh," Rose said, and hurried to get there before her father did. The area was like a tiger trap, filled with a forest of tall, thick ice spikes. A woman's body was impaled on one of them, and gore stained the pristine snow all around her. Approaching very carefully, she looked closer.

Her hair was right, long and jet black, now disheveled so that it looked like she was caught in a web. However, the woman's face was unrecognizable, battered and cut to pieces as it was, but her teeth showed, and they were awful—blackened stumps which had never been seen by a dentist. Teeth were the one part of the human body that did not regenerate even with special powers; her father had several replacement teeth because of that fact, and Rose expected that she would too, some day.

The woman was also completely naked, which was also awful, what with the spike and the entrails—but she was far too thin, the kind of thin that fashion magazines photoshopped into looking healthy enough to print. She and Yukie had used onsens together now and then for weeks, and while she didn't spend her time staring, Rose had seen enough of Yukie to say it definitely wasn't her, between the teeth and the body.

That was exactly what she said to her father once he caught up. "It must be the old Snow Elemental," Rose reported. "That means Yukie won! Yukie! Yukie? Where are you? It's us!" she shouted, making her hands into a megaphone.

She was answered by a crackling noise coming from high up, and then a rumble.

"Um, that might not have been the smartest thing to do," Tim began, but Slade interrupted.

"Avalanche! _Run_!" Several tons of snow and ice separated themselves from the mountain and headed toward them, accelerating.

There was nowhere to run to, unfortunately.

* * *

Yukie found the hot springs, and they were _very_ hot, hotter even than boiling, thanks to the lava deep below which superheated them. Iron leached from the rocks made the waters red, a rusty shade like watered down blood, but the waters were beautifully clear for all of that. She could see where the bubbles formed, many meters below the surface. It was a natural caldron, a witch's brew from the depths of an unimagined hell.

On a shrinking ice floe in the center of the pool lay the immortal heart, and Yukie could feel, even from where she stood, the beating of that heart. It was not a beautiful object; from the angle where she stood, it looked like an apple that had gone soft and wrinkly. It was a trap, of course. The ice floe was visibly shrinking even as she watched it. Much longer, and it would be lost underwater. Heat could not hurt it—nothing could hurt it—but heat could hurt her. If she had been a yuki-onna longer than a few hours, or if she had the heart of winter, she would be powerful enough to reach it and experienced enough to know exactly how best to go about it.

The floe was too small to stand on, so she could not transform into wind and waft herself there; she couldn't pick up the heart without becoming solid. She would have to go there physically, but there was no time to plan judiciously. She had to act and act right then.

The yuki-onna must have frozen most of the surface of the spring to a depth of several inches to keep it from melting away before she got there. What she could do, Yukie could do. She began by enlarging the ice cake under the heart itself, and spread it outward toward the bank, but the heat was too great for her to freeze the entire pool of water. Very well, then she would concentrate on creating a bridge to the floe, a good foot wide and several inches thick, arcing over the water without touching it. The steam rising off the surface would be bad enough.

While doing that, she also kept reinforcing the ice underneath the heart. When she judged the bridge would hold her, she started across, step by careful step. If she were still as human as she had been until now, she would have been fainting from the heat, but that would never again be a problem, provided she survived this. As long as she didn't suffer one of her involuntary twitches…

…which she had not experienced since the night before. The flaw in her cerebellum which caused them was a malformation of random chance, rare but not genetic, a fluke. Could disincorporating into wind and reincorporating again have fixed it? This was not the time to think of it. She reached the ice floe, picked up the heart of winter, the kami-yuki heart, and pressed it to her chest, which took it in like water flowing into water. She was…whole.

Then the hot spring sent up a huge bubble of steam which splashed water everywhere. The bridge crumpled, and Yukie fell into the seething cauldron.

_Ice! Make ice make ice make ice __**more**__ ice! _

Water had two properties nearly unique in the physical world: when it was cold enough to become solid, it expanded rather than shrank as most substances did. It was also lighter than its liquid form in that state, so it floated.

Yukie had just entombed herself in a coffin of ice, a coffin which she had to keep renewing or be boiled alive. With tons of ice above her and around her, she was well and truly trapped.

* * *

A/N: So they are all in serious trouble! Next chapter will resolve all of it. My thanks to my readers and reviewers Mooncutie11, Code Aster, and Swordstitcher! Code Aster, damn you, now I have to write that karaoke scene! I have to!


	53. Slade, Yukie, Rose: White As Snow

It was Victor Fries who saved them. As the mass of ice and snow plummeted down, he met the threat with a blast from his cryogun, creating an arc of solid ice over them. As he lowered his weapon, he remarked, "Fighting ice with ice doesn't have the same ring to it as fire with fire, but it can be equally effective. I suggest we not linger here for more ice to fall. There's a narrow passage here we can squeeze through single-file—but do so quietly, please."

Rose winced, muttering, "Sorry," and one by one, the group inched their way through. Fries and Slade brought up the rear. Fries looked pensive; as their turn came, he remarked to Slade, "For twelve years, Yukie was simply there. Quiet and reliable, and ever present. I thought very highly of her, when I thought of her, but I paid no more attention to her than I did my own hands. I don't suppose I would have allowed her weekends off if she hadn't insisted—there were times I was peeved she wasn't there, so I called her. She'd have to tell me it was the middle of the night and she had limits. All my focus was on my work.

"For all that I was fond of her, Nora knew her better after twelve days than I did after as many years—I didn't find out about what she had done to settle my debts until after she was gone. Then Cobblepot showed us the video. I do not wonder that you were drawn to her. I _do_ wonder why she was drawn to you…but then I am still amazed that Nora looked twice at me.

"What I am trying to say is that, if anything irrevocable and negative has happened to Yukie, I will find it hard to forgive myself. Other than that, I would be enjoying today a great deal. It isn't often I get to feel the sun and the wind on my face in temperatures I find comfortable."

* * *

According to what Yukie had been taught, if someone willfully took a life or otherwise sinned, even if it was only an insect's life, they went to Naraka, the hell realm, for an unspecified amount of time. Buddhism being, by and large, a reasonable faith, the concept of hell was also reasonable. No one ever went to Hell for all eternity, just for long enough to atone for their sins.

Within Naraka, some said, there were eight hot and eight cold hells. Yukie had never knowingly killed an _innocent _human being, but she had killed insects and eaten meat, which was a form of participating in taking an innocent life, so she fully expected to spend several hundred lifetimes paying for her misdeeds. Among those misdeeds was the sin of lust and wanton carnality, the punishment for which involved being chained to a bed of ice with more ice for the sheets and bedclothes. Given her relationship with Slade, she would not have been surprised to learn she would be spending a long time there, but she had never imagined the greatest part of the torment, for her, would be the inability to move. Nor that she would have to spend every moment keeping it from becoming a _hot_ hell.

Sooner or later, she would be worn out. Sooner or later, she would not be able to make any more ice. The ice would melt and she would be submerged in boiling water, unable to get out yet equally unable to die. _ This_ was the real trap. This was the old yuki-onna's revenge for a thousand years and more of loneliness and sorrow.

She could not have said how long she was trapped there. Time had no meaning when you were anticipating certain agony. Eventually, though, she became aware of vibrations.

* * *

Yukie looked dead. Naked, frozen in bloody-looking ice, her eyes closed tight, fingers splayed as though she were trying to claw her way up to freedom, and her hair a dark swirl around her—she looked dead. It was that simple.

"I'm not picking up any of the usual signs of life," Victor Fries said, playing an instrument over the surface of the ice, "but between the ice around her, the hot spring below, and the volcano itself, it isn't surprising. Too much input. Trying to cut her out directly would be a mistake at this moment—the steam from the spring is under a great deal of pressure at this point, and it would be like piercing a canister of explosive gas with a drill. We need to vent that pressure at an angle away from us, before we carve her out of this."

"I can help with that," Starfire offered. They went to work.

It took time, two hours of slow and careful effort punctuated by sudden, unexpected geysers of boiling water and steam. Fries had to leave off and back away as the temperature rose. Once they carved out a large wedge of ice around Yukie's still form and dragged her up out of the spring, to a safe distance, Cyborg's enhanced hearing detected a heartbeat.

The problem was that Yukie kept renewing the ice as fast as they could remove it. Since there was only so much room around the block, those without powers or specialized tools had to stand back and let the others work. Robin, Beast Boy, Nora Fries, Rose and even Slade himself were forced into the role of bystanders, which pleased none of them. So intent were they that it took some time before they realized there was a sixth person with them.

"The waiting is the worst," Rose said, watching Starfire narrow her blast down to a finger width and torch away more of the ice block. "She had to be conscious enough to keep making the ice, but why isn't she helping now? Or if she can't, at least blink her eyes so we can see she's okay."

"She might not want to. As long as she's out of it, she doesn't have to deal with what comes afterward," Kitaro said.

Rose whirled. There he was, in the flesh, with his ivory tipped russet hair hanging around his face in spikes. "Kitaro? What the hell are you doing here? How did you get here?"

"I, um, kind of led you," He rubbed the back of his neck and looked sheepish. "But I can explain! You can yell at me and beat me up later if you want to."

"Led us here?" Gar put in. "You mean—that fox was you?"

"Well, yah," he replied.

Rose's eyes grew big. "You—you're a kitsune? A yokai?"

"Ever since I was born," he confessed. "Which was, um, a while ago."

Slade turned his glare on the new arrival. "You're that kid who was hanging around Rose in Tokyo. What do_ you_ have to do with this?"

The kitsune shrank back. "It's a long story—."

"And this is taking a long time. Talk." It was an order.

"I was assigned the task of making sure Lady Snowblood got here before the vernal equinox," Kitaro began, and went on, finally finishing with, "…and when your goddess tells you to do something, you _do _it."

"So you were just _using_ me to keep tabs on Yukie?" Rose glowered when he reached the end.

"At first, yah," He looked away. "But that was before I got to know you."

"I really am going to beat you up now," she predicted, making a fist and drawing her arm back.

"Wait your turn," snarled Beast Boy. "He jerked _me_ around first."

"Your turns are after mine," Slade Wilson shouldered his way in.

"Wait! I really do like you, Rose. You too, Gar. And uh—I'm afraid of you. Sir," Kitaro stammered out.

"That shows you're not completely stupid," Slade stared at him. "So why isn't Yukie coming out of it?"

"She may have drawn into herself so far she isn't aware we're out here. So she's afraid of getting hurt," Kitaro reasoned aloud. "In more ways than one, I'm guessing."

"In w_hat _ways?" Slade pressed.

"She's not exactly human anymore," the kitsune said. "She's changed in ways you can hardly imagine. The person trapped in that block is different than the woman you knew before, and…you might not like that person. Or want to live with her. I'm sorry." He_ sounded_ genuinely sorry.

"What, you mean that business about being able to turn into air and freezing things solid to consume their essence? Yeah, we know about that. How often will she have to do that, anyway?" Rose asked.

Kitaro's expression suggested he was trying to digest something iffy. "You _know_ about that."

"Yeah, I did my homework on yokai."

"And it doesn't bother you?" he asked.

"I can't say we're all amped about it, but we all have to do things we don't like to. Besides, it sounds like she's going to get some _sweet_ powers out of this. If she's still Yukie and she still remembers us and feels the same way, we'll deal and we'll be one _amazing _badass family. Right, Dad?"

"Yes," he replied, and called out to those who were working away at the ice, "Concentrate on getting her face free, all the way down to her ears. Don't worry about the rest for right now. I have an idea."

"Um, she might wind up outliving you both by a lot." Kitaro warned her.

Rose snorted. "If the science guys are to be believed, Dad and I are both potentially immortal. _ That_ might be more of a problem."

"Nobody warned me about this," Kitaro complained. "Nobody said, 'Oh, yah, her consort and his daughter are going to be just fine with her becoming a yuki-onna. In fact, they'll think it's great.'"

In the meantime, Raven called to Slade, "Okay, we have her face clear of the ice, so whatever your idea is, _hurry_!"

Everyone fell silent as Slade stepped up to the block of ice, from which Yukie's face emerged, looking about as alive and human as a marble bust. She was not breathing, and her lips were blue, her skin nearly so.

His body language changed as he reached out to brush the hair away from her cheek, going from threatening to relaxed, even casual. Then he leaned in and said, right into her ear. "Pardonnez moi, Madame. Ou est la catastrophe?"

Yukie took a breath, and color flooded back into her face, her lips. "Ici meme," she replied, and she opened her eyes. "Oh!" she said, seeing him first and then glancing around at everyone else. "You—you found me." Ice cracked and fell away as she sat up, clutching at Raven's cape, which was draped over her unclothed form.

"Yes," he replied. "We did." He steadied her as she balanced on legs wobbly like a newborn foal's. "Are you all right?"

"I think I am, but I have become—."

"The Yuki-Onna and the new Snow Elemental," he supplied. "While you were out of it, we already established that we're fine with that. Rose and I, that is. It's appropriate. Like seeks like, they say, and for years I've been called the coldest son-of-a-bitch ever to walk the planet."

"Uh—was that a funny? Did Slade just make a _joke _at himself?" Beast Boy whispered to Robin, and got shushed.

"Very good," she smiled. "I was afraid I would never see you again, never hear your voices again."

"Hah," Slade uttered. "You're not getting rid of us that easily. Not after that message you left me."

"I'm glad…." She looked around again. "I know who everyone is, even those I haven't met. Victor, Nora—how nice to see you!" Looking down at herself, she made a gesture, and ice fog formed itself into a kimono around her, like white damask cloth with a frost design. "That's better. There is so much I need to tell you—but I lost my ring."

"I'll get you another," he promised. "Now let's get out of here and back to civili—." He paused.

All around them were yokai. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of creatures from the completely bizarre to the nearly human. "If you're looking for trouble," he promised, "I brought more than enough to go around."

* * *

A/N: Had a weird internet outage this week. Ah, well. Thank you, Swordstitcher!


	54. Rose: A Retinue?

Rose recognized a lot of yokai among the throng—the ones with necks like snakes were rokurokubi, and the woman who was a spider below the waist was a jorogumo. The turtle-frog hybrids had to be kappa, and—well, there were several yokai who were one-eyed and about the same size as a human child, so it was hard to tell which those were, exactly. At the center of the assembly was a little old man with an enormous, oddly shaped head, wearing marvelous dark orange silk robes embroidered in gold.

"That's Nurarihyon," Kitaro whispered to the Titans. "Think of him and treat him as the emperor of all yokai."

"Got it," Rose whispered back, but Nurarihyon was addressing her father.

"Peace, Warrior," he said, smiling, "We are here to welcome the new kami-yuki and celebrate her accession. All here assembled, greet the new Queen of Winter!"

Rather than cheering, every single yokai bowed, and Yukie, startled-looking, returned the bow. "You do me great honor," she replied. Then there was a thunderclap, and most of the yokai disappeared.

"That was startling. But who are they?" Yukie asked, looking at the half dozen or so yokai remaining.

Two were small to the point of being child-sized, with soft, slightly blobby features, but their heads were a little too large and their hands had claws. The one on the right held a wrapped bundle in his hands. The next yokai was a red, newt-like creature with webbed hands and feet and a mane of dark hair, another was a small calico cat—a kitten, really, with two tails. That one Rose recognized straight off—a bakeneko.

Then there was a pair of dogs. Or something like dogs. They had bodies something like bulldogs, at least, short, powerfully built and stocky. Their heads were somewhere between a dog's and a cat's in appearance, and they had lion-like manes and tufts of fur on the ends of their tails and on their paws, curly against the smoothness of their tawny fur.

Finally there was a girl about nine or ten years old whose hands were green, webbed and clawed. She had pointed ears and pointy teeth, but she looked rather sweet all the same, yet stubborn too. Wait, the necklace at her throat was moving—it was a snake. Maybe.

"Ah, they hope to join your retinue," Kitaro said.

"My what?" Yukie asked.

"Your household staff. Someone of your status among yokai has to have people to look after her and her residence. They're applying for the job. Jobs, actually."

From his body language, Slade Wilson had decided to be amused by the situation.

"The last yuki-onna did not seem to have anyone looking after her, from what I saw of her dwelling," Yukie pointed out.

"That was because she, um, devoured a few of them. The rest ran away," Kitaro said.

"Also, I plan to return to the United States very soon. Do they realize that?" Yukie asked.

"Yes! They're counting on it. Uh, look. It's like this. When the Europeans returned, we yokai retreated from the world, most of us, because of how the Catholics took against us the last time they were here. Since then, we've been stuck in our own Time of Isolation, and it isn't any better for us than it was for Japan as a whole. We need to come forward and live in the modern world. All of these folks here are young. They want to learn, and it's hard when you're stuck at home in the community you've lived in all your life. If they join your retinue, that's traditional enough to make their families happy, and if you're going to America—well, then they can go too."

"We don't want to _be_ human," said the girl, boldly, "We just want to learn how yokai can fit into the world as it is now."

"Kiyomi!" one of the blobby kids scolded.

"It is all right. Your goal is one I would support," Yukie said, "but you have me at a disadvantage. I don't know how these things are usually done. Why don't each of you tell who you are and what you would do around my residence?"

The blobby kids exchanged glances. "I'm Haruto. He's Hiroto. We're Tofu-kozo. Kitchen help and general chores. Here you are, my lady." Hiroto held out the parcel he was holding, and Yukie took it.

"Thank you? Oh, it's the rest of my clothes and my boots. Cleaned and mended too. Thank you!"

'Mended' was pushing it from what Rose saw. 'Sewn back together' was about as close are you could get, since the stitches were large and in the wrong color.

"It is part of our duty to you," Haruto said, and they both bowed, smiling hopefully at Yukie, with tiny, pearly teeth.

"I see," Yukie said, her brow creasing in thought. "And who is this?"

The newt burbled something that wasn't in Japanese, or possibly in any human language.

Yukie seemed to understand it quite well, however. "Ah, I see. You're an akaname. Yes, several bathrooms. Four, in fact, plus an extra toilet and an onsen-style tub. But they're very modern and—yes, four in one house. Want to see?" She pulled out her phone and swiped at it.

The newt's eyes grew huge in its face, and it burbled something more.

"I'm concerned you wouldn't get enough to eat, that's all." Yukie replied.

It burbled again.

"Well, there will be neighbors, I suppose. You could look around the neighborhood as long as you were discreet. I understand. It's a stereotype to assume all filth-lickers like living in filth. Now—." She looked at the dogs.

Kitaro jumped in. "Ay and Un—those are their names, Ay and Un—are komainu. Their throats aren't built to speak, but they're just as intelligent as anyone. Usually komainu guard temples, shrines, and palaces, but there aren't that many new ones being built these days. Ay is female, and she will guard you, your family and your other servants. Un is male, and he will guard the real estate itself. _No one_ with ill intent will get past them in your home. They can be hurt, but not killed. Not on the territory they guard." The komainu wuffed and nodded.

Slade Wilson ."Watchdogs, huh. Intelligent, unkillable, unbribable. Loyal?"

"Through seven lifetimes."

"Hmm," intoned Rose's father. He sounded in favor of the idea.

"Mrrrow," the kitten said, yawning and batting at Kitaro's pants leg.

"This is Genki. He's really very young, as you can see, but—show her, Gen. Stand back a little, and give him room."

Genki took up a crouching position on the ground, and his round eyes grew huge and dark. His butt wiggled as if to pounce, and then he grew to more than ten times his size.

"Impressive!," Yukie exclaimed. Sounding sincere could not have been easy, because even at ten times his previous size, Genki was the cutest thing ever born.

"Prrrow!" he agreed, then leaned over on one haunch to bite at and wash between his toes on his opposite back leg. Leaning too far, he flopped over bonelessly and looked at them in surprise that gravity applied to him. Then he quivered and shrank back down.

"As you can see, he can't stay transformed for very long yet, but that he can manage it at his age at all is pretty amazing. This is Kiyomi. She's a nure-onago. Her people live in lakes and rivers. Since Rose said you were planning to live on a waterfront, I thought a couple of water dwellers would provide defense on that front."

"Half nure-onago, half kappa," the girl corrected him. "My father is a kappa. He raped my mother. Kappas are rapists. She hates me, I hate him, the hate goes around, and I very much want to live on another continent away from both of them. This is Uchiteru," She unwound her necklace, which turned out to be a lizard with a long body and short legs. It looked like it was carved out of labradorite, grey with strong glimmers of blue, green and gold. "He's a tatsu, a water dragon."

"And a very beautiful one," Yukie replied. "Now that I know who you are, the truth of the matter is that I know nothing about having a retinue, as I said. You, I gather, will do housework and guard my family, our home, and me, but what would I do for you in return?"

"House, feed, and clothe us—those of us who wear clothes, that is," Haruto said. "And whatever gifts it may please you to give us. We will serve you to the best of our abilities, even to laying down our lives."

"Provided I don't eat you out of hand," Yukie said, frowning in thought. "I see. My concerns are, first of all, that the house, while spacious, has no servants' quarters as such, and there would be little privacy for either you or us. I value privacy, everyone's privacy."

"Uchiteru and I don't need servants' quarters," Kiyomi said. "We'll live in the lake."

"Ay and Un only need big dog beds, and Genki can sleep anywhere, anyplace," Kitaro pointed out in their behalf. "They're all housebroken and can come and go as they like, doors and locks or no doors and locks."

The akaname burbled something, and Haruto said, "We don't need much space, and you won't see us or hear us—_any_ of us—unless you call on us for something or you want to. We're very, very good at being unseen."

"I am also concerned that you would be homesick or not get along with each other. Japan and America are very different, and if there are any local yokai, I know nothing about them," Yukie pointed out.

"That is _exactly_ what I want—to live somewhere there aren't any kappa," Kiyomi said. "We're volunteers, my lady."

"What about children?" Slade suddenly asked, surprising everyone. "Small ones, under the age of six, say. Are any of you good with them? Or any of you think they're too delicious to pass up?" Yukie looked at him with especial surprise, Rose thought, but then she was, too. Was he thinking of brothers and sisters for her, or what?

"We _are_ all good with children," Kiyomi said, staunchly. "We expect there will be some, sooner or later. We'll watch over them more carefully than our own, especially down by the lake."

That assertion was refuted by the other speech-capable yokai, who offered their assurances that any child would be looked after just as well indoors and elsewhere on the grounds, even in the bathrooms, which could be dangerous places. A few wurfs and yowls suggested that the animal yokai, too, were prepared to go to any lengths when it came to protecting children.

"It's your decision, because it's your retinue," Slade turned to Yukie, "but given who we are and what I do, the chances are someone will show up at the house looking to make trouble, sooner rather than later. Having full-time guards on hand around the clock and someone who can baby-sit at any time would be useful. Even vital."

"You have more experience in this than I do," she said, and then, "Very well. We will try it and see how it works. There is the laundry room, I suppose… But how am I to get six yokai to Lake Tahoe?"

"That is no problem," Kiyomi said. "We are your people, and we can find you anywhere on Earth."

"Then you are dismissed for the time being," Yukie said. Once they were gone, she looked at the pile of clothing, and said, "I am going to go put these on, and then we must go to the hospital. My family—my _birth_ family—must answer to me for what they did."

* * *

A/N: Yokai included: Tofu-Kozo-tofu boys. They run around the streets offering people blocks of tofu when not acting as servants to more powerful yokai. Akaname-flith-lickers. They live by licking up and devouring bathroom dirt and grime. Traditionally they favor dirty bathrooms, but this one has more finicky tastes. Bakeneko-cat monsters. Komainu-guardian dogs, immortalized in statue form many, many times. Nure-onago-literally, 'wet girl'. Looks like an ordinary young girl or woman who fell into a ditch or stream, but she isn't-usually just follows people around, but her half-Kappa heritage makes Kiyomi more of a fighter. Yokai lore emphasizes that Kappa will grab anything female and go for it, and if the woman is human and gets pregnant-well, it's bad. Think chest-bursting aliens. Tatsu-water dragons, one of the oldest supernatural beings in Japan.

So, it's been a long time since my last chapter—sorry about that. I had a sinus infection, it's much better and I can breathe again without hawking up a lung. It doesn't help that the delay of spring means the area I live is now pollenbombed by Mother Nature. Next chapter will be the confrontation in the hospital. I think there will be about four chapters to go including that one. My thanks to those who are reading and even _more_ thanks to those who review. That means you, Guest!


	55. Yukie: Family Moments

At the hospital, Slade's hand closed on Yukie's elbow before she could go to her brother's room. "There are some things you need to know before you go in there," he said to her, and to Tanaka, the police officer, "If you could give us a moment."

"Of course," Tanaka replied.

Slade drew her off to a visitor's lounge, where he said, "I spoke to Ra's. He confirmed he made a pact with an ancestor of yours to bring back the Shinobi, but said he had nothing to do with your abduction; he did not call in the debt. His daughter Talia did."

"But why? I saw her only once in my life and we barely exchanged two words," Yukie recalled.

"Because first of all, he had a breeding program of his own going within your ancestor's, to come up with a naturally long-lived woman. He wants one, or maybe several, who won't get old and die on him in a handful of decades. I unintentionally spiked his guns by seeing you first." He smiled smugly.

"He wants—oh, no," It was revolting. "There is something I have not yet told you. What Victor Fries gave me for twelve years of employment, above and beyond money, was twenty embryos. Twenty healthy female embryos, gene-cleaned and ready for implantation, although cryogenically frozen. I wanted daughters, but genetically speaking, they are closer to being my clones than my daughters. That was what I asked for, back when we first made our agreement. Before I left on this trip, I put them in a fertility clinic, and…because I did not know if I would be coming back, or when, I put them up for implantation by whoever would want them. Ra's swooped in and claimed the entire twenty."

"Twenty? Twenty potential yuki-onna?" Slade asked. "Twenty potential wives or concubines for Ra's..."

"Yes. While I would never tell my daughters who they could or couldn't marry, I draw the line at having them born and raised to stock his harem! Do you suppose he knows I am, and they are, yuki-onna?"

"No. If he did, he would have boasted of it—the man can't resist trumpeting everything he does—and for another, if he knew you were a potential Elemental, he would never have stood aside and let us get together. He would have been courting you aggressively, after his fashion," Slade said.

"I am certain I never want to know what that means. Must I become his grandson's nanny after all, or is there something else he wants?"

"Yes. It's the reason Talia wants you dead. He doesn't want a nanny for his grandson. He wants to take her son away from her entirely, and for us to raise him. What do you say to adopting a four year old boy with an exceptional potential future as an assassin?" He sounded almost…jaunty?

"That is…Is that something you would want?" She gazed into his single eye.

"I'd rather start with one than twenty," he said. "He's four. At that age, you'll be doing more of the day-to-day with him than I will, so the decision should be yours. I'm willing if you are. If _you're_ in it, I have confidence this family will turn out all right."

"I never meant to have them all at once! I—can't say for certain until we meet the boy, and perhaps a trial period—until he would have to go to kindergarten in the autumn. In truth, I never imagined raising a son," Yukie admitted. "_That_ is why you asked the yokai if they were good with small children. I did wonder."

What he had said about having her in the family warmed her heart. However, there were other things to think of at that moment. She pulled out her phone and called Ra's al Ghul.

Several minutes later, Yukie paused on the threshold of her brother's hospital room, and closed her eyes for a moment.

Then she looked in the safety glass window. Ichiro was sitting up in bed; it was dinner time, and he was trying to feed himself, with their mother watching him, looking anxious. Haruko was over by the window, looking out, her phone to her ear. Their father was sitting in a chair by the bathroom, slumped in an attitude of exhaustion and despair, and the prefectural police officer kept vigil by the bed. Various instruments inside the room bleeped and blooped every so often, but no one spoke.

Her brother's fingers twitched and the chopsticks flew apart, spilling noodles and tofu on the bedspread. "Here, my dear son, let Mama help you," she said, coaxingly, but then she noticed the open door and her daughter standing there. "She's here!"

Her father got up, and Haruko turned to face her. "Oh, Nee-san!" She crossed the room in a couple of steps. "You're all right! Oh, I knew you would be!" At the sight of Slade standing behind her, all three of them went very quiet and stiff.

"Yes, Haru-chan," Yukie said, but her eyes were on Ichiro. His lip hung slack, and their mother took a napkin, dabbing at it. "Officer Tanaka, I wish to state for the record that I will not be pressing charges against my brother, Kuwano Ichiro."

"Very good," the officer said, and undid the restraints, "I'm sure you have a lot to talk about." His look at her family suggested he had overheard some of those things. He left the room with a nod of goodbye.

"Do you want me to stay?" Slade asked.

"No," she said. "I will be fine."

"All right," he agreed, but gave her parents a dark look before he left.

"I see that they know who he is," she said to Haruko, glancing at their parents.

"Yes, I told them," Haruko said, giving them a scathing look. "You should be pleased she's making such a good match. A man at the pinnacle of his profession, and so wealthy, too!"

Their parents would not meet her eyes.

"Well? Somebody say something!" Haruko interjected. "Nee-chan, do _you _have any idea what's going on?"

"Yes," she said, and took out her phone. Turning it around so the screen faced the room, she pressed a button.

Ra's al Ghul's voice said, "Good day. I am the man who your ancestor knew as Shutan Doji."

Her mother gasped and her father sat down. Yukie knew they were looking at the man himself—he had agreed to this courtesy, for which she would have to pay later, no doubt.

Ra's continued, "As token of this, I offer the passphrase agreed upon: 'Over Sado Island, the River of Heaven.' I met your daughter first two years ago, and I was impressed by her fighting skills, but moreso by her character. I recognized her then as the culmination of this family breeding project, although she was entirely ignorant of it herself. I was pleased, although I wondered that no one had informed me of this success. As my investigation revealed that you disowned your daughter when she decided not to move back into your home after her husband divorced her, I assumed you had another, better candidate waiting in the wings, and I anticipated, with some eagerness, your announcement that you had an heir—or heiress—to the Shinobi powers. I looked forward to meeting this warrior and learning their capabilities."

"But no such message came. Instead, I waited. I am still waiting. Your daughter has told me a most disturbing tale of being drugged and abducted by her brother, supposedly by my orders, delivered through you. Is this true?"

"Yes, sir," her father said, "We were told to call a number when she was…and someone would handle matters from there."

"And did this order use the proper passphrase, or any passphrase at all by which you would know it was a true and authentic order?" Ra's inquired.

Her parents looked at each other. "Sir, it did not, but—."

"It was not a test. Another person sent it, and you would have betrayed your eldest daughter for nothing. You were too hasty, and I am not pleased. Neither would your ancestor have been, to see the culmination of his work so mistreated. Even if it had been a true order to deliver, not a proud inheritor of your ancient skills, but a half-conscious, terrified woman with no idea what is happening or why—you should be ashamed of yourselves. I would be well within my rights to punish you.

"However, your daughter has pleaded on your behalf, despite the fact that you disowned her and how you intended to make use of her—and you should be very, very glad you did not succeed, given her intended's temperament—so at her behest, I say to you now—.

"I absolve the Kuwano family of their obligations and debts to me, and will make no future claim to your property or persons." He paused. "Your eldest daughter is worth ten of you. Ms. Kuwano, I look forward to hosting you and your intended at my fortress in three days' time. Until then."

The call over, Yukie put her phone away. Her mother was weeping, her father had his head down almost to his knees, and was taking deep hoarse gulps of air that were half sobs.

"What?" Haruko wailed. "What's going on? Who was that? What ancestor are we talking about?"

"It is quite a tale," Yukie said, "but we are descended of the Shinobi. About two hundred years ago, our ancestor made a deal with that man, I shall continue to call him 'Shutan'—."

"Yukime! Enough! This should not be spoken of!" her father ordered.

"Haruko is as entitled to know as anyone," Yukie replied. "After all, she and her children were as bound by it as any of us. It might have been one of them who you handed over, if I were not available."

"What?" Haruko went pale. "Handed over?"

"One of us for all of us," Yukie said, transfixing her father with a glare; he turned away. "One Shinobi, or all the Kuwano family would be pressed into slavery. And it is the same man. He truly is that old, and he is the head of the League of Assassins. To that end, our ancestor set up a breeding program to resurrect the Shinobi powers by marrying descendents to each other. He had ten generations in which to do it. You, Ichiro and I are all results of that program. We are the ninth generation—your children and Ichiro's son are the tenth. That is why they were so frightened—they were afraid the debt would come due without any other way to pay it."

"This is ridiculous! What powers are you talking about?" Haruko said. "You don't have any."

"But I do." Reaching for the bottle of water on Ichiro's tray, Yukie froze it solid with a touch. "They came later to me than they do to most people, but they came. That was the problem, wasn't it? I was a girl and a defective girl at that, without any powers. Triply useless. Then I returned to Japan when I did, and they saw I had superhuman reflexes—I bought those in Thailand, by the way. They are not natural. So they thought to fulfill their promise by having Ichiro fetch me for delivery. Since he is really only a paper driver, he crashed the car and then gassed himself."

"Have pity and respect for your poor brother," their mother flared up, "you unnatural, ungrateful—."

"I have saved all of you," Yukie replied, "and while 'Shutan' did so as a favor, it is a favor that will have to be repaid, and not in money. I am going to pay it. The ingratitude is not on _my_ side. Consider it the fulfillment of my daughterly duty to you. After today, I doubt I will ever see either of you again."

"Wait a moment," Haruko put in. "If this was some breeding program, and my children are the tenth generation—does that mean Isamu was part of it too? Another Shinobi descendent? That was why I had to marry him, to preserve and pass on his genes?"

"Yes," said their father, curtly.

Haruko began to laugh. "That _is_ funny. It truly is. Don't you remember what I told you, and him, when you told me it was either marry him or leave your house with nothing but the clothes on my back? I swore to you that if you made me marry him, I would be the worst wife in the world. I would lie awake at night thinking of new ways to be a bad wife and make his life misery. Well, I did!

"_None_ of my children are Isamu's. Not one of them. Four children by four different men, and I wouldn't recognize their fathers if they walked through the door right now. I visit our local love hotel so much they let me keep the key! You thought Nee-chan was immoral because of Wilson-san—well, I bet I've had more men in a year than she has had in a lifetime. And women, too!"

"Since I have never had a woman as a lover, that part would not be difficult," Yukie said.

"Get out!" their father ordered roughly. "Both of you!"

"Gladly," Haruko said. "Let's go get a cup of tea, sis." Outside the door, she said, "I exaggerated how sexually active I've been, I want _you_ to know that. After a year of marriage went by, I had a fertility center analyze a sample of Isamu's semen. He just didn't have enough live tadpoles to get anyone pregnant. So I told him if he wanted children, he'd have to let me handle it. I used sperm donors rather than complicate our lives with potential custody battles. I do find both men and women attractive, but I only ever seem to fall in love with women. Remember the friend I introduced you to at lunch about five weeks ago? She and I have been…together for over ten years now. I wanted you to meet her."

"I see. I wish you had shared this with me before, but I understand why you didn't. Twenty years ago, the world was a different place and I was a different person. I wouldn't have understood. Living in the States, I grew more open-minded." They were walking down the hospital hall toward the snack machines, and Yukie pulled out her wallet for some bills. "Oolong or milk tea?"

"Oolong…This whole tale of Shinobi and deals with the devil—it's like an old adventure or history. I can hardly believe it. And now you have powers—what are you going to have to do for 'Shutan'?"

"I can't tell you, Haru-chan. It is not only my secret," Yukie gazed at her sister. She took after their mother more than Yukie had, but where their mother had bitter lines of strain and stress, Haruko had laugh-lines.

"And I'm the family gossip—except when it comes to my own secrets, that is." Haruko gave her a conspiratorial grin. Then her face grew somber again. "You're not going to disappear and not be heard from again for twenty years, are you?"

"No. Not this time. There's all sorts of social media. We'll keep in touch!" She handed her sister the oolong tea. "You'll keep an eye on the rest of them for me? I am very worried about Ichiro."

"Heh, yes. Ichiro—they say he may recover a lot of functioning with physical therapy, but his wife already left him. Good riddance. I suppose his three wives were all supposed to be part of this breeding program too, and that was why he couldn't marry his girl in college," Haruko speculated.

"I assume so," Yukie said, "Perhaps they'll let him get back together with her now."

"Or perhaps not. You saw Mother fussing over him—she may want to keep him to herself. Listen, Nee-chan. I know you're about to go off and have a life I can hardly imagine, what with Wilson-san and this Shutan—so take good care of _yourself _as well as your husband and Rose. The things that you did wrong with Isamu are exactly the things that are right with Wilson-san—the respect and consideration. Be happy! Be well! And remember me."

"I could never forget you, Haruko."

* * *

A/N: Another chapter, some loose ends wrapped up. Two or three to go! Thank you to those who are still reading, and thank you to those who have only just tuned in!


	56. Slade: Preparing For The Future

By way of thanking them for their help, Slade invited the Titans to come to Tokyo with them for a day or two, and after a moment of intense private debate, they accepted. Apparently Rose's account of the fun she'd had there swayed them. Now they were down at the other end of the train car, talking quietly amongst themselves. The outing wouldn't cancel out the debt he owed them, but it was a good will gesture, a promise for the future.

Yukie fell asleep on his shoulder within fifteen minutes, and she was still sleeping. Well, she had earned it; new elementals didn't happen every day or even every decade. He looked at her peaceful face and smiled.

Life rarely just gave him good things out of the blue. In fact, it was usually the opposite. But finding out that the life partner he had already chosen couldn't be killed, plus soon he would very likely have a new apprentice, a new son—these were gifts. When he remembered how he had tried to convince the first Robin to leave Batman and train with him instead, and now the man's own son was being handed to him—that was another reason to smile.

His mind moved on to the practical aspects concerning these changes in his life. Slade pulled out his phone to compose a lengthy message to his lawyer about altering his will and adding Yukie's name to various accounts and deeds, starting with the house on the lake. Anything connected to her or to their family had to be above board and beyond reproach, so no matter what happened to him, no one could take it away from them. It would not do for the law to freeze or confiscate assets they might be relying on. A man who made his money the way he did had to be circumspect about his finances.

The small movements he made while coming up with the instructions jiggled his shoulder and woke Yukie. "Oh. How long was I asleep?" she asked.

"About an hour and a half," he replied. "There's a bottle of water in the bag there, if you want it."

"Thank you," she said, and drank about a third of the water. Capping the bottle again, she looked at him, her eyes huge and soft.

"Hmm?" he asked.

"I was just thinking that I am fortunate beyond measure. I am already with someone who accepts what I have become and the way I must restore my powers. Someone who doesn't see me as a monster or want to move heaven and earth to 'fix' the less pleasant aspect of the yuki-onna."

"You once told me you decided to accept what I do the moment before you kissed me, without conditions or reservation. Could I do any less?" he asked.

"Hmm," she said, and a smile lurked at the corner of her mouth. "Yet you haven't kissed me since you learned what I am."

"Let me correct that," he said, and put action to the words.

He made it a slow and deep kiss, leisurely, one that said, 'We have all day', and her mouth was as humanly soft, sweet, and warm as ever.

When they broke apart, her eyes were shining. "Any further doubts will have to wait until we're alone. Now, to change the subject," he said, "do you have a lawyer?"

She blinked. "Yes. What an effective change of subject."

"Thank you. Can I have his or her contact information? My lawyer will have a number of documents for them."

Yukie got out her phone and supplied him with the details.

"Good. We'll let them hash out the details. Now my next question for you," he said. "Would you be willing to adopt Rose legally as your daughter, and would you also be willing to be a legal guardian for Joseph, should some medical decision need to be made when I can't be contacted? You can take your time to think about if you want to, but 'adoptive mother' carries a lot more weight when it comes to issues of guardianship than 'father's wife' does."

"No need. Of course I will, but not without asking Rose first."

"You think that after everything, she'll say no?" he asked.

"No, but it will mean a lot to her that we are taking her feelings into consideration. Where is she?—I'll just text her." Yukie pulled out her phone again and sent off the message. Seconds later, the reply arrived, and she showed it to him.

_**OMG! YES!**_

He chuckled. "That's my daughter," He looked down the aisle to see Rose standing up and waving toward them enthusiastically. The kitsune Kitaro was right next to her, looking at her with a goofy infatuated expression smeared all over his face.

"If you like, I can have the 'if you don't know him well enough to talk about what you would do if the birth control fails, you don't know him well enough to have sex with him' discussion with her."

"I don't have to worry about her getting pregnant or catching an STD," he said. "It can't happen."

"It can't? Why not?" Yukie asked.

"It's the serum. It boosts the immune system to the point where she'd need to take suppressants to conceive and stay pregnant, let alone catch something."

"Does Rose know this?" she asked.

He sighed. "…No. She's barely forgiven me for dosing her with it in the first place. Also, I don't want her getting ideas."

"The ideas are everywhere these days. She is very nearly an adult," Yukie pointed out.

"I know. But when I look at her, I still see a six year old with her hair in a ponytail and scabs on her knees, hiding behind Addie's legs."

"Believe me, I understand. I'm still trying to reconcile the idea of my little sister being a bisexual who has slept with more people than I have. How dare people change and grow and have lives that don't center around us?" That made him smile. "This is something Rose needs to know, however. Is there a recent book or article about the serum which she hasn't read, one which explains that side effect adequately? You could give it to her and tell her there is information in it she should know. If she finds out on her own, she may not forgive you."

"I'd rather wait until she's twenty, but…at least _he's_ smart enough to be afraid of me. Now," he turned his attention back to Yukie. "You didn't bring your blades along on this trip, and you don't have any armor. Tomorrow we're going to get you both. If we had three months, even three weeks for you to learn every aspect and limitation of your powers, you might not need them, but we have less than three days before we walk into Ra's fortress. You can't be killed, but you can be injured and incapacitated."

"You expect we will be attacked there."

"At the very least, Ra's will want to test us. At the worse, a palace coup by Talia," Slade told her.

"Then I had best be prepared for it. I had no idea there were places in Tokyo where one could find gear such as yours."

"The place I have in mind has fabricators that make 3D printers look like mimeograph machines," he said. "Come to think of it, I know someone else who wants new armor." He texted his daughter, 'If you're serious about 'Nyghtingale', do you want to get new gear tomorrow?"

The reply was 'RU kidding? Is it my b-day and nobody told me? WOW!'

He showed it to Yukie, who smiled, then frowned in thought. "Do you suppose they have some kind of material which will change into air and back when I do? I don't know how to transform anything other than myself, and I would rather not be naked whenever I shift back."

"I don't know, but if they don't they might have a lead on who would."

Several hours later:

"We can manufacture a fabric which will travel as you do," said the technician, "but we will need a hair sample to do it. The matrix uses keratin spun from your own DNA, so the fabric will seem like a part of you to your powers, as if it were made from your own hair, which, in a sense, it is. It will feel like silk. The only color options are either the person's natural hair color or white, so your choices are black or white. It will take three to six weeks to cultivate enough for an underlayer such as a bodysuit. It is not inexpensive, and the minimum order is a thousand yards."

"That will be fine," Slade said. "Whatever they want, make it. As for me, I understand you have a firing range here. I'd like to try out your ordnance in the meantime."

"Of course, sir."

A couple of hours and a lot of rounds later, the technician got his attention by dimming and brightening the lights. He took off the sound-cancelling headphones, to learn, "Your ladies are ready, sir."

He went back out to the main room, and waited. "Are you there, Dad?" Rose's voice sang out.

"Yes," he replied.

"Great! Brace yourself, because….Ta-Da!" His daughter did a side leap into the room.

Her new armor was not too different from the old, but it was different enough. Black and bright cobalt rather than blue-black and orange, with silver accents here and there. The boots were heavier, more futuristic than swashbuckling, and the design a touch more feminine, streamlined and flattering. She had eschewed a mask in favor of a cobalt patch around, not over, her left eye.

"Well, Dad? What do you think?" She bounced a little on the balls of her feet.

"Very nice! I like the head to toe silver stripes, the verticals suggest speed and power. I'll assume it has adequate stopping power against both blades and bullets."

"And tasers and lasers," Rose nodded.

"Is the patch by way of suggesting me without shouting out whose daughter you are?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Clever," he said. "And the single wristlet with spikes on it, what's that for?"

"I'm Rose. Roses have thorns, get it? Just one wristlet, because I'm not _that_ prickly. Okay, now close your eye—and prepare to be_ stunned_."

He did as he was told, and waited. He heard footsteps,

"Get ready to meet—Snowblade," Rose said.

He opened his eye. There stood Yukie, and she looked—majestic, dressed in dark metallic red and lacquered white armor in a design which referenced samurai armor without slavishly copying it. A pair of wakizashi on her back completed the ensemble. "Ah. Well. You look—like yourself. _Completely_ like yourself. I thought you didn't like the idea of using red?"

"That was before I had been to Hakkoda-san. Having been there, I now think red is exactly right. It's not…_excessively_ Asian, is it?" She looked at him appealingly.

He remembered that he had made a comment about that. "No. I was thinking of Cheshire's ridiculous tiny kimono, not something like this. You look fierce and formidable. Tomoe Gozen for the twenty-first century. You've tried it out for full range of motion?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Show me."

She immediately assumed the starting stance for the first exercise of Jian Wu, the Tiger, and tore into it at full speed. The pounce propelled her at least three yards, and when she landed, she went directly into the Kingfisher. Her every move was assured and fluid; the boots neither slid nor brought her up short. Then he realized what he was seeing—or, rather what he wasn't seeing.

"You aren't twitching anymore!"

She completed Dragon's Breath, and stopped. "You're the first person to notice, or at least the first to say anything. Even my birth family did not." She smiled. "I theorize that changing into air and back again removed the defect. It also healed my cuts and scrapes without scabbing or scarring, which leads me to wonder if it would do so for more serious wounds."

"Hopefully it'll be a while before you find out," Rose said. "Especially with your new armor."

That was a reminder: Rose needed to be brought up to date with their plans, but she was not going to be privy to all the details. "Have you told her yet?" he queried Yukie.

"No."

"Told me what?" Rose asked.

"When the Titans leave tomorrow, you're going with them, and we're following in a couple of days. This one is not negotiable." Slade told his daughter.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because although we've loved having you along, we've spent over two months together, all three of us, and this was supposed to be a vacation for _two_," Yukie said.

"Meaning that we want a couple of days where we don't have to put on clothes if we don't feel like it," Rose's father explained.

"Ewwww!" was her response. "Well—okay. When are we meeting up again, and where? Don't you _dare_ go and get married without me there!"

"We won't," Yukie promised.

"At the Reno International Airport," Slade said. "We'll call you when we get on the plane and tell you when we're landing. You can work out how to get there on your own."

"Okay," she said. "But I mean it! I am going to be at your wedding, or else."

"You will be," he promised. And she was—when they got married in the States, to make sure it counted as legal.

A/N: The next chapter, which is probably the next to last, will take place in Ra's fortress. Thank you to Swordstitcher and my 'Guest.' 'Guest', you may have noticed I had Slade think about his attempt to recruit Dick Greyson. That's for you.


	57. Slade: Nanda Parbat

Nanda Parbat, the strange and secret headquarters of the League of Assassins. Slade had met several people who had been there, even trained there, and heard several accounts of what it was like. Some said it was set in a desert, a city carved into a sandstone cliff face. Others said it was set in the Himalayan mountains, so high up the air was thin and starved for oxygen, but the fields of poppies which grew there were as blue as if they drank the color of the sky. The Nanda Parbat to which the private plane brought them was somewhere subtropical and humid, and from the air it looked like a ruin half overgrown with sprawling vines. Once on the ground, it became clear the ruin was too artful to be natural, the vines had to have been trained and cultivated to cover it just so.

What then was the answer to the mystery of Nanda Parbat? Did it change from one visit to the next? Did the visitor see what they expected to see? Being pragmatic, Slade believed there was not one League headquarters but several, and all of them were called 'Nanda Parbat' when outsiders were brought there. He might be wrong; stranger things existed in the world.

He began to swelter the moment they left the plane and stepped into the sun. Fifty pounds of body armor complete with a full face mask and a winter-weight underlayer had a way of doing that to a man. Yukie touched his shoulder, and refreshing coolness spread out from that spot. _This_ was why they were so good together—all the things they did not have to say because they already knew.

She could not see him smile behind the mask, so he nodded, and she replied with a quick smile of her own. Looking at her in her bright new armor, he thought of Rose and her new Nyghtingale persona, and how their gear contrasted to his own combat-battered armor. He didn't want to look shabby next to them.

_Perhaps it's time to change things up a bit myself. Not too much, I've got an established image and instant recognition nearly everywhere, and I don't want to change that. Something subtle, though._ A color change, then? The blue-black was still good, implying darkness, danger, and menace, but the orange—it represented the smoldering coals of anger, the fire of ambition. But what would replace it? _Gold_. _Gold for triumph and victory_.

At the massive door to the fortress proper, they were stopped by a pair of guards and a very polite person of indeterminate gender who regretfully requested that they leave all weapons there before they entered the fortress.

"And who told you to tell us that? Ra's or Talia?" Deathstroke demanded.

"Ah, that is…" the person stalled.

"The man or his daughter. Which one? Whose orders do you follow? Out with it."

"The Lady Talia is most careful of her father's safety," the person replied.

"Yet the Lady Talia is no friend to me, which her father knows," Yukie pointed out, "and we are here at her father's invitation. I suggest this compromise. We keep our weapons until we are about to enter your master's presence, and surrender them there. You, of course, shall escort us to make sure we cause no harm along the way, along with as many guards as you deem necessary. Please confirm with your master if such terms are acceptable. We will wait." She smiled very gently at the person, as one might at a backward child.

The sun was shining full on all five of them, but only the guards and the person were sweating. Yukie was as fresh as a glass of cold milk straight from the refrigerator, and thanks to her, so was he.

They waited. The person conceded. "That will not be necessary. Please follow me."

The request was not unexpected; only the timing came as any surprise. The upside of being unarmed while completely surrounded by hostile assassins armed to the teeth was that you then had plenty of weapons to choose from, provided you took them away from their owners first.

Outside, the fortress might be disguised as a crumbling ruin, but inside it was intact and well-lit, its walls a pale, rough stone, travertine or some such. The lofty arches and wide halls allowed for good air circulation, as there was either no actual air conditioning or else it was very subtle.

"Sure you don't want to chuck me over in favor of becoming mistress of all of this?" Slade teased his fiancée, and noted the way their guide's spine stiffened ever so slightly. Gossip fodder for later, no doubt.

"I own it is an impressive place, but Rose and I get along so well. I know whose stepmother _I_ would rather be," Yukie answered. The look she gae him spoke volumes more about whose _wife_ she would rather be.

For the League headquarters, the fortress seemed sparsely populated. That mystery was solved when they reached the vast inner courtyard where several dozen assassins were training, overseen by their master and his daughter from an elevated pavilion in the center of the space. Before they entered the training area, Yukie surrendered her swords, yawara sticks, a dagger and a garotte, while Slade handed over his swords, boom-stick, handgun, line launcher, flash powders, explosives, poisons, and acids. They were a couple for whom disarming could count as a form of foreplay.

A flick of Yukie's eyebrow said she had not missed the fact that owing to the setup, they would be open to attack from a full 360 degrees. That should make things interesting. The pavilion itself was a little oasis in the midst of it all, with a sprightly little fountain and jasmine plants to breathe forth a heady perfume, covering up the smell of so many sweaty bodies. A tiny emerald colored lizard skittered away as they mounted the steps to join Ra's and his daughter around a low table with a black glass top. A pitcher of ice water and a tray of tall glasses were at hand.

Five chairs were set around the table, one of them child-sized. It was empty. Two of the other four were already occupied by Ra's and Talia Al Ghul. He was relaxed and perfectly at ease, while she sat there as rigidly as a corpse, with an expression of flinty obdurance on her face. Whenever Slade had seen her before, she was wearing a black leather jumpsuit unzipped to the waist, but in this climate even she bowed to the temperature, and wore a white cotton caftan. It was open to the waist, and so sheer it was obvious she wore nothing underneath. Only some artfully placed embroidery saved it from being indecent. He wondered if the display was meant to distract him. If so, it was a wasted effort. He was thirty years too old to be cozened by that ploy.

"Ah," Ra's said happily when he saw them. "Ms. Kuwano, Mr. Wilson, welcome to Nanda Parbat. Please, sit." They did so, and Slade removed his mask as a gesture of openness.

"Ms. Kuwano, this armor is something new. How elegant! It suits you wonderfully. Have you chosen a name by which you will be known?" their host inquired.

"Yes, I have," Yukie replied. "Snowblade."

"Far more appropriate than 'Yuki-Onna.' I hope this means you will be entering the Jian Wu competition this fall. You were much missed at the last two. And Mr. Wilson. I had thought that with you on vacation, my people might have the opportunity to pick up some of the slack, but it was not to be. You managed to mix business with pleasure, and if anything, it seems to have sharpened you. Your work last week was superlative."

"Thank you. This vacation did us all a lot of good. I had no idea how much I needed one until I was on it," Slade replied smoothly.

"Even work which one finds fulfilling can burn one out, if one never does anything but work," Ra's sympathized, and gestured for the guide to pour the ice water. "The two of you seem to have brought a cooling breeze with you. How pleasant." Slade smiled. Ra's had no idea how right he was.

"Enough with these niceties, Father," grated Talia. "Let us get to the point. My son."

"You may yet wish we had spun out these niceties, child. But by all means, let us get to the point."

Ra's drank deeply from his glass before he continued. "My grandson, Damian, is four years old. He was begun, I do not say conceived, as his genes were spliced together rather than trust to nature, while I was incapacitated and knew nothing of this. Instead of carrying him in her own womb or entrusting the fetus to that of another woman, he was gestated in a tank, nurtured not with his mother's heart blood but with a nutrient mix enriched with oxygen, hearing no heart beat nor loving voices but the beeping and whining of machines.

"Once he was born, he was never allowed a permanent caregiver lest he become more attached to her than to his mother, who nevertheless went days or even weeks without seeing him. I could go on, but it is all of a piece. In the name of trying to produce the world's perfect assassin and my natural successor, she has made a mockery of childhood, motherhood, and all that the League of Assassins represents, and I will not have it. I cannot help but acknowledge him as my grandson, as genetics proves it, but I reject him as my successor and I do not name him as my heir. Unless and until I find him acceptable, he will inherit nothing. If you would know the reason why, here it is. This was recorded last week, and it is why I cannot allow you the remaining three months grace, Ms. Kuwano."

He touched a spot on the surface of the black glass tabletop. It was a monitor. They saw a room somewhere in the fortress, for the walls were the same pale travertine as the rest of it, but the floor was concrete, and grooved toward a central drain. There was Talia, kneeling beside and hugging a small child. He was a beautiful child, with dark hair and features that were already handsome, and he glowed with happiness at being so close to his mother.

She tapped his nose with her forefinger and said, "Today, Damian, is a very special day indeed. Today you will kill for the first time."

"Truly, Mother? I will?" he gasped with excitement.

"You will," she promised, and turned her head to say, over her shoulder, "Bring them in. Make sure the drugs have taken effect first, and that they are bound and shackled properly." Turning back to her son, she gestured at a table covered with blades, knives and swords of different types and sizes. "Now, I want you to stab the first one through the heart, as you've been shown. What weapon do you want to use for that?"

"That one, the dagger with the blood grooves," he pointed.

"And what is it called?" she prompted.

"A cinquedea!" he said with glee.

"Yes, that's right," she said, and hugged him again.

In the meantime, two of her bodyguards had led in a dull eyed man with his hands bound behind him. He moved with the shuffle that went with leg irons, and he wore only a ragged pair of pants. "Make him kneel," Talia commanded, and they did.

"Here he is, Damian. Now, strike for the heart, and put all your strength into it." Talia pointed to the man's chest. "Remember what you've been shown."

The boy took the dagger in both hands-small as he was, it was more the size of a sword than a dagger- and struck. "Uh!" he said, and the man echoed it.

"I'm afraid you missed," his mother said. "The blade turned on a rib and barely broke the surface. Try again, and put the point right here." She touched a spot on the man's chest.

This time the blade went in, and came back out again with a sucking sound. The man made a small choking sound, and toppled over.

"You did it!" Talia exclaimed joyfully, and clapped. Her bodyguards followed suit-from the sounds of it, there were also others in the room, clapping and cheering.

Damian laughed merrily. "I did! I can do _anything_! Another one, another one!"

"You heard my son. Haul this one away and bring the next. You will cut this one's throat, and that calls for a different type of blade. The cinquedea is a thrusting blade, and slitting a throat calls for a slicing blade. Which one, darling?"

"The falcata," he said, and picked up a short sword with an inward curving cutting edge.

"An excellent choice, but you are still a little too small to wield it effectively. Also, it would make for a noisy and slow death. Choose again."

"A...switchblade?" he asked.

"Yes." In the meantime, the bodyguards had brought in another man, similarly bound and drugged. Talia continued, "Now, for the most swift and silent kill, you must put the hilt here, and then push the button. No, you must stand _behind_ him, darling, or his blood will get all over you. Push the button, and then rip forward through the trachea and blood vessels...Wonderful!" Again, she applauded and the others and he laughed, then immediately demanded another.

The next one was a woman, and his mother coached him while he stabbed her in the ear with a punch dagger. Talia praised him for how coolly and calmly he made his first kills, and told what a good boy he was and how proud she was of him. He demanded another, but she told him that was all for the day and she had to go now.

He immediately burst into tears. "No! No! Stay, Mommy, I want to kill some more! You have to stay! I-I ORDER you to stay." He threw his arms around her leg, although he still had the punch dagger in his hand, and would not let go.

"Damian, stop this at once. _You_ do not give _me_ orders. Stop it, I say. Let go! You know that I have important things to do. Here. Take him," she said with contempt, as an older woman came into view.

"Mommy!" he wailed, holding out his hands as his mother left him. "Mommy!"

"It's all right, Damian love," the woman said. "We'll-."

"NO! I don't want you, you _peasant_. I WANT my mother! I want my _mother_!" She tried to hug him, but he pushed her away-with the hand that had the punch dagger in it.

It stuck in her chest. She looked down at herself in stupefaction, then reached for the hilt even as one of the bodyguards shouted, "No, don't touch it-."

Damian looked down at the dead woman, and his face contorted in sudden grief and contrition. He cried out, "No! No, I didn't mean it! I didn't!" He redoubled his crying, and Ra's ended the video.

"She was the permanent caregiver I insisted upon," he told them. "She had been taking care of him for the past year. But for those tears he shed when he killed her, I would consider him a hopeless case, for that is the only empathy, the only natural human reaction I have ever seen in him. But for that, I would...you do not want to know what I would have done."

He smiled, and it was not a happy smile. "And my daughter does not understand why I am displeased with her and with him. I do not know where I erred with her. For years I thought she was the only one of my children who was without defect in body or mind, and now I learn I was wrong, to my sorrow."

Slade could not conceal the wave of disgust and outrage which swept over him. "That could not have been more obscene if it was outright child pornography."

Yukie looked hard at Talia. "Do you know how bonsai are created? A gardener takes a sapling and digs it up. They plant it in a pot too small for it, and then cut away all the parts of it that conflict with their design for it. They wrap its branches with wire to warp it so it will grow the way they want it to. That is what you are doing to your son. The difference between a human and a bonsai is that if you then plant a bonsai in the ground, remove the wires and allow it to grow naturally, it can still become a full sized tree. Still, he is only four, and that means there is still hope."

Ra's took over the thread of conversation again. "So, daughter, this is my solution. Here are the parents I have chosen to do what you have proven, over and over, that you cannot or will not do. Yukime Kuwano comes of a culture which still values children and childhood. In and of herself, she is intuitive, warm-hearted, loyal, steadfast, and incorruptible. Slade Wilson is the finest assassin in the world who is not of the League, and an exceptional trainer, far better than anyone not of the League has any right to be. He is a man of honor and even of integrity.

"They have been married for over two years-you yourself witnessed their meeting-and count as one of the most stable and affectionate pairs in the community of 'costumed adventurers'. They are wealthy enough that you cannot claim I am turning him out into penury. They will adopt your son and raise him as their own. Starting today."

Yukie coughed delicately. "Ah—this is moving very quickly. We are not married. Not yet. Legally adopting a child together today is not possible."

Ra's snorted and shot her a wry look. "The two of you were married almost from the moment you met. If it will ease your mind—Do the two of you agree to be married?"

"Yes," Slade said. He could see where this was going.

"We plan to marry when we get to Nevada," Yukie said. "Almost immediately, in fact."

"Why wait? You are of age, you agree to be married. You are married. I declare it so. Of course you will want documents and the boy will need a passport. See to it," he told the guide.

"Can he do this?" Yukie leaned over to ask him in a very low voice.

"Yes," Slade told her.

"But Rose isn't here, we haven't even met the boy nor agreed what we will do if it just does not work. If he is not well socialized enough to enter kindergarten in fall, if he's a danger to potential classmates—." She paused. "After what I have seen, all these considerations pale and look foolish. This child—."

"Is my child," Talia stood. "Mine. Father, I have dedicated my life to you. I have done as you bid me, I have held the reins of your empire when you were dead—permanently, as we all thought—I have done my best to get the Batman to accept his destiny and become your heir, when we both know that for all his excellences, he will never—never, no matter how beautiful I am nor how tempting the powers you command are, he will never yield and take up killing. Why have you never considered _me_ as your natural successor, only as a tool and a vessel to get another as your heir? Wherein am I lacking? Oh, I know that. I am a _woman_. But I am also a mother, and that supersedes all other loyalties now. I _will not_ allow you to do this. You will not take my son from me." She projected her voice out over the din of training.

"Now! Kill the two of them! Do not leave any limb or joint in their bodies connected! But if any of you harms my father, it will be your last living action in this world."

* * *

A/N: Yes, another cliff hanger! I guess there'll be at least _two_ more chapters after this one. Slade deciding to change part of his armor from orange to gold is based on the Arkham Origins action figure, which, yep, I bought.

As far as I know, Damian's first kill has not been described in detail, but I haven't read every comic with him in it so I'm not certain of that.

Guest: Thanks! This is the wedding Rose didn't get to attend. It wasn't like they did it on purpose. Ra's has done things like this before. He once married Talia and Bats without Batman's consent, because in his country only the bride's consent is necessary.

Swordstitcher, thank you. I hope this lives up to expectations.


	58. Talia: Miscalculations

Deathstroke snatched up his mask and slammed it into place over his face, while 'Snowblade'—what a name!—did something to the back of her neck, pulling up a hood which made little clicks when it locked into place, forming a deep helmet which covered her hair and obscured her face. She kicked the first of Talia's assassins on the chin as he mounted the steps, snapping the man's head back, and seized the sword from his hand as he crumpled. Deathstroke smashed the first to reach him in the face with a fist, grabbed that man's sword, and tossed it to his woman before turning his attention to the next, who had a nodachi. Now they were both armed for their favored fighting styles.

Talia watched the two interlopers spring into battle and permitted a small smile to cross her face. In Talia's memory, Yukime Kuwano was an insignificant creature, almost plain, with a face that was too narrow, a mouth that was too soft, and a meager, almost sexless body. Her only good feature was her skin, which was enviably fine.

It came as a surprise to find that memory played tricks even on her. The woman was attractive. While not particularly generous, Snowblade's figure was lean but female, her eyes large and expressive, and perhaps the most effective cosmetic of all was that she simply looked happy, quietly but radiantly happy. Why should she not be happy? She had just spent two months with the man she loved, and he wanted to marry her. She, Talia, would never have that happiness with Bruce.

This unexpected attractiveness did not explain why Ra's al Ghul was so impressed by Snowblade, and had been since the night of the Jian Wu competition. Nor did it explain how she had managed to fascinate Deathstroke, to whom Talia turned her attention next. The man was a formidable assassin, true, but too much of a lone wolf for the League, which needed team players. Well, soon enough he would have to break off fighting to tend to Snowblade, once she collapsed from the heat. Talia knew that was Yukime Kuwano's weakness, and had set up the ambush accordingly, counting on the oppressive heat and humidity of the Yucatan peninsula.

Perhaps he would abandon his fiancée, and fight on. He was capable of that. It didn't matter. Snowblade was the true threat to her, and as long as the woman was taken out, Talia would be content with the day's work.

Why could her father not see that Talia had done everything she had done not because she wanted to, but because she had no other choice? Bear Damian herself, and risk losing even a fraction of her value? Every day she already battled the effects of time with thousand dollar jars of skin cream and injections of human growth hormones. The Lazarus Pits were fountains of _life_, not of youth, although it did have a rejuvenating effect. After you had been immersed, however, you rapidly aged back to the state you were when you went in. Going from a glowing eighteen to a world-weary thirty something in weeks was…distressing.

Men might say a woman was never more beautiful than when she was breeding, but no one praised the aftermath of pregnancy-the sagging dugs where once there were high and firm breasts, the thickened waist, the belly left flabby and permanently marred with stretch marks. And surrogates were unreliable. They could smoke, drink, get sick, suffer miscarriages, even get killed somehow or other. It was far better that he should grow and develop in a nice clean, safe tank than be exposed to such dangers. Someday her father would see that.

However, while she woolgathered, the fight was raging on. Beside her, her father, quite unperturbed by the treachery and violence, said in conversational tones, "Ignorant and uncultured people dismiss Jian Wu as too complicated and refined to be a true martial art. They watch the seventh level formal duels and call them impractical, a dance performance rather than a fight.

"If they were paying better attention, they would realize that the poetic names for the various maneuvers actually describe violence and death. For example, 'Eagle Screams Above The Lamb'—that lamb is about to be rent apart by the bird's beak and talons. Once one has mastered a hundred seventh level maneuvers, it becomes second nature to attack and block using them, not as showpieces for virtuosity, but in earnest. See what Snowblade is doing there? That's called 'Faded Roses on the Bough'. What you do to remove dying roses is called 'Deadheading.' Simply put, you cut them off."

Snowblade was crossing her arms and swords under the chin of one of Talia's bodyguards, and then she uncrossed them, 'deadheading' the woman. Talia smothered a gasp. Her father continued. "I do hope she competes this year. I can tell she's been training a great deal. Jian Wu, to her, is as natural as a child playing catch with a ball. That is, a _normal_ child. Attempt to play catch with Damian, and he would no doubt look at the ball and ask how one made it detonate."

"Stop it, Father!" Talia commanded.

"Stop what? Speaking the truth about your creation? You are raising him up to be a sociopath. Contrary to popular belief, sociopaths do not make good assassins. Oh, they're ruthless, even eager and creative killers, but they don't confine themselves to their assigned targets. They cause trouble at home, in barracks, even in the field when they find themselves bored. Besides, when did children start growing up to be _exactly_ what their parents wanted them and raised to be? I have never know that to happen, and I have seen more centuries than you have decades. Why should training a child up to be the perfect assassin be any different? You, my dear daughter, are a case in point."

"That is unfair!" A severed hand flew past them and landed on the pavilion floor, where it lay twitching for a moment before it stilled. It was neither Snowblade's nor Deathstroke's. "I have dedicated my entire life to you and to the League!"

"And yet you do so _very_ poorly. Look at your bodyguards! It makes little sense to put them into armored corsets if you then leave a hand's span of flesh bare at the waist on either side." Snowblade illustrated why that was so by a dragging cut which sliced right down to the fascia that kept the intestines in place.

Why hadn't she collapsed from heatstroke yet! It was taking too long! Deathstroke, meanwhile, ran one of the male assassins through and planted a foot on the man's chest to yank his sword out.

"Returning to the topic of Jian Wu, Deathstroke, on the other hand, while estimable, is not truly a practitioner. He will never be one of the true greats. He learned it well enough to compete, but his true style is for the two-handed blade. See how he hacks about like that? A throwback to some Viking ancestor. An effective one, yes—see how the blood flies? But Snowblade is a purist. Hah! Look at that! Her left hand sword lodged in that fellow's thigh, but instead of wasting time trying to pull it out, she took her opponent's blade and went on to the next."

Talia could not share her father's enthusiasm. What had gone wrong? Snowblade was in full armor, where her people were in lighter gear, and she still was not fainting under the summer sun. Unless—no. No. Victor Fries was in Japan, and they remained on good terms. If she had asked him to devise a cooling system for her armor…

"By the way, daughter," her father said. "Why have you been trying to have Ms. Kuwano killed? I know of several attempts over the last year, before I ever spoke to you of my plan to have Damian adopted. You didn't use the League to do it; you hired cut-rate thugs through a third party, to make it less traceable, and you had them say it was because of something Deathstroke did, but it was you."

"Because I read your files on the Kuwano family, and I knew she would be a natural long-lifer. Because you would have married her, and I will not see her in my mother's place," Talia replied.

"She doesn't want your mother's place. She chose another before I ever said a word to her," he said, with regret tinging his voice.

"But you wanted her there. That was reason enough. And if she lives long enough, who is to say she will not be there eventually?" And reason enough to do…something rather dishonorable. Something that would not be discovered for years, with any luck.

Luck did not seem to be on her side that day.

"I see," Ra's al Ghul said. "The reason I have never and will never name you my successor is because you suffer from a woeful inability to think things through and alter plans to fit the circumstances. In order to make things appear unsuspicious, you had your conspirators train for an hour in the sun before my guests arrived. In dark clothing. Without letting them take breaks for rest and water. As a result, they were already somewhat tired and dehydrated before they entered the fray. And then to set them on people in full armor, when they are only half-armored at best! Well, the ranks do need culling now and then."

Talia watched the fight, watched her most loyal and capable people fall like stalks of wheat before a scythe. Jian Wu, in a duel, was pretty fighting, as her father had observed. In a real melee, it was devastating. Snowblade's swords blurred to the point where they looked as flexible as ribbons. She was countering attacks and dealing damage as though the fight was choreographed for a movie, her feet barely touching the earth before she was on to the next.

For his part, Deathstroke was living up to his name. Yukime Kuwano was only concerned with stopping those who challenged her, and left more alive but incapacitated than she killed outright. He killed everyone who came in his way. Efficiently. Brutally. Swiftly.

She had already lost a third of her supporters.

"You may even think you had Damian and are training him to be my successor, but he is in truth your way of getting revenge. Revenge against his father, who will never love you enough to change who he is. For that, you are raising his son to be all that he hates. Revenge against me, for never naming you my successor. For that, you are making a monster who will destroy the League. And while I might allow the first, for the detective irks me with his stubborn resistance, I will never, never allow the second. Enough!" he pitched his voice to carry over the din. "League, lay down your arms. This farce is over."

They did, and Talia stifled a noise in her throat, but her father heard it. "Did you really think they would turncoat and obey you over me? Foolish girl. So foolish. He turned to the major-domo, the one who had led Deathstroke and Snowblade to them. "Please take our guests to a room where they can freshen up, and have their armor cleaned. Provide them with new garments and have _this_ mess cleaned up. Also, tell the boy's attendants to pack his things. He will be leaving here today.

"As for my daughter," Ra's cast her a piercing glance, "those of you who were her bodyguard—those who have survived—are now her jailors. She is under house arrest. Ignore any and all commands she gives you, under pain of my extreme displeasure. Take away all weapons and means of communication from her, and keep her here under close guard until my guests and I return. Search her _thoroughly_, as well. You have cost the League and me a great deal today, Talia, both in terms of lives and in the concessions I shall have to make, to make up for having guests attacked under my roof."

It was a couple of hours before they returned, long and miserable hours for Talia, who remained in the chair where she was while the bodies were hauled away, the wounded taken off for treatment, and the entire courtyard hosed down and scrubbed.

When they did return, Yukime Kuwano was wearing an outfit from Talia's own wardrobe, a Chinese styled suit she had not even taken the tags off of yet, pale blue with rose colored sleeves and gold embroidery. It was yet another offense, but she was not in a position to protest.

"It is my ruling that you may use 'Lady' in front of your mask name, Ms. Kuwano. Your exhibition of skill today demands it! Besides, it unequivocally makes the point that you are a woman, not that any who met you would ever doubt it," her father oozed. The title of 'Lady' was indeed much coveted among assassins, so perhaps this was his way of making it up to her—a way which cost him nothing.

"Thank you, but you know already what I would rather have. My embryos. In fact, I wish it was not an issue between us, in case the two of us simply cannot help your grandson," she said.

"I will return ten of them to you today," Ra's promised, "but if you find he is beyond helping, I leave it in your hands as to what should be done with him—if you take my meaning."

"Do you mean institutionalize him, or something more final?" Deathstroke asked.

"I mean I leave it in your hands as to what should be done with him," her father repeated, "I will trust your judgement."

He meant that they could kill him—and her father would not so much as blink.

The three of them returned to their seats in the pavilion, just as they had been before.

"You may bring the boy now," her father commanded, and to her, "This is so that you can say your goodbyes to him, for his sake and not yours. I would deny you even that, otherwise. You will nod and agree and keep your head—if you want to keep your head." He was not joking.

* * *

A/N: I hope that this chapter satisfied. The next and probably the last will be from Damian's POV.

Thank you, Swordstitcher! Much appreciated and back at you!


	59. Damian, Talia, Yukie: For Real, Forever

A/N: Remember: At this time, Damian is only four. He's very bright, but not quite the hellion he will be by the time he's eight to ten years of age.

* * *

"Why must his name be changed?" Damian heard his mother demand as he entered the courtyard. "'Damian' is a strong name, a conqueror's name. It means 'He who tames', as he shall tame and conquer the world when his time comes."

"It is not the meaning of the name which is the problem. It is the fact that to Americans, 'Damian' is the name of the demonic boy from a series of horror movies. People will always be asking, 'Like from The Omen?', and his peers will constantly snicker and taunt him with it as he gets older." It was a woman who said that, one whose voice he did not know, a cool, slightly low pitched voice.

"Not to mention that it sounds like the name of a Eurotrash gigolo," rasped a deep male voice.

Then he saw his grandfather and ran to him, "Grandfather!" he said, getting a quick, one armed hug and a ruffling of his hair. "What's a Eurotrash gigolo?"

"Someone who gets his money by finding rich girlfriends and living off them," his grandfather explained. "It is not an honorable way of life."

"Oh. Oh! The servants said there was a treacherous plot against you and a battle here in the courtyard! Why didn't you send for me? I would have defended you and brought honor on my name!" He made a riposte and stab with an imaginary sword.

"Small children are banned from the Field of Honor on the grounds that if they lose, everyone expects it, and if they win, everyone says what an honorable man the deceased was, for not raising a weapon against a child," said the strange woman. Damian looked at her. She was quite pretty, and she had very white skin, especially for an Asian woman. He wasn't sure, but it seemed like a secret smile was lurking around her mouth. "You will have to wait until you are at least in your teens."

"I didn't know that," he said. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Damian, you are unmannerly," his grandfather chided. To the people, he said, "This, of course, is my grandson. Damian, this is Ms. Yukime Kuwano, who has earned the right to be known as Lady Snowblade. Although not related to us, she is my creation as you are your mother's. As your mother caused you to be made, so I chose her parents. This is Mr. Slade Wilson, who is Deathstroke."

Damian had never heard of Lady Snowblade, but he knew who Slade Wilson was. He was spoken of in the League of Assassin as a man to be respected and feared. "I have heard of you," he said to Deathstroke. "I may be small and young now, but I've already killed people, and when I am old enough and big enough, I will face you in battle and deliver _your_ death stroke."

The silver-haired man with one eye chuckled. "We'll see about that. Come here."

His grandfather gave him a little push in that direction, so Damian went.

Slade Wilson stood up as Damian approached. "Hm. Stretch your hand out like so." He demonstrated, spreading his own hand as wide as it would go, splaying out his fingers. Damian copied him, and Deathstroke pressed his hand against Damian's. "Big for your age. Big paws on a cub mean a big wolf when he's grown, and at age four, people are almost exactly half the height they'll be when they're grown-up. Provided they're nourished consistently, that is. You're going to be about my height, and if you want it bad enough and work _hard_ at it, about my build. Heads up!" he suddenly shouted, and faked a punch at Damian's midsection.

Damian flipped backward out of reach, as he'd been taught. "You're right," Deathstroke said to his grandfather, "He is being taught wrong."

"I am _not_! You take that back!" Damian made as if to punch the huge man, but Slade Wilson caught his fist and lifted him off the ground with only one hand until their eyes were at a level.

"You are being taught wrong, and don't even_ think_ about kicking me, brat." If it was anyone else, Damian probably would have, but something in the assassin's voice stopped him. He didn't want to admit it, even to himself, but Deathstroke was scary. Only a little, he told himself.

"That's an overly showy move, and in ten years' time, when you're starting your growth spurt and your center of gravity is moving up to your chest, it will look stupid and it won't work as well. In fifteen years, it will get you seriously hurt, even killed. You shouldn't be learning bad habits at this age—they're liable to stick with you for life. Good thing I'll be training you from now on." He set Damian back on his feet and ruffled his hair.

Damian jerked away and smoothed his hair, giving Deathstroke a nasty look. Only his grandfather was allowed to do that to him. He looked over to his mother, who was in charge of his training. "Mother?" She looked tense and even trembly. "What's going on?"

"Your grandfather means to take you from me," she said, and her voice broke. "You don't want that, do you? It's terrible, monstrous. Tell him. Tell him how sad you'd be."

"Talia," his grandfather said, and it sounded like a warning growl. "You fly too near to the sun."

He looked to his grandfather. "Grandfather, what does she mean?"

"Damian, for some time I have been unhappy with the way you are being educated and raised. Last week was the final straw. Your mother may think you are old enough to be killing people, but you are not, even though you are physically able. At your age, it is wrong."

"But why? I'm going to be an assassin. I _am_ an assassin. I've proved it," Damian whined.

"No, you have not. What you did bears the same resemblance to being an assassin that working in a slaughterhouse bears to being a lion hunter on the veldt. Less. Because your mother will not listen where you are concerned, I have decided to revive an old custom. Long ago, noble lads, even royal lads, who were intended for the knighthood, did not train at the place where they were born. When they were about your age or a little older, they were sent to be fostered at other courts, where they began in service to a lady as her page, and from her, learned gentle manners and proper behavior while they also trained in all manner of arms. Their time as a page lasted seven years. Then they entered into service to a knight as his squire, and _that_ time lasted seven years as well.

"That is why Lady Snowblade and Deathstroke are here today. You will still be my grandson and your mother will still be your birthmother—ah, but that's not truly the case, is it? She will still be your _genetic_ mother, and will be all your life, but they will adopt you, take you to America, and raise you as their own. You will learn good manners and good behavior from your new mother as well as how to handle swords, and your new father will take over where she leaves off. In fourteen years, you will be eighteen and ready for whatever the world has in store for you."

"But I already have good manners, Grandfather. Whenever Mother and I have meals together, she teaches me how to eat different foods properly, like snails and ortolans," Damian explained.

"There is a great deal more to good manners and good behavior than knowing what fork to use, Damian, and there your mother has been very neglectful. Your mother has disappointed me greatly, Damian, or else I would not have to resort to these measures."

"Mother did something wrong? Then why do I have to be sent away?"

"Because that is how it must be, and that is how I will have it," Grandfather replied. "It is for her good as well as yours."

Damian suddenly understood what was going on, or thought he did. Grandfather wanted to punish Mother for some reason, and he was pretending to send him, Damian, away to scare her and make her sad. Grandfather did things like that sometimes, like making people think they were about to be killed but then not doing it. His childish mind skipped over the many more frequent times that his grandfather actually _did_ kill people.

Anyhow, Damian was not at all adverse to helping punish his mother. She was away far too much, flying off to run parts of Grandfather's empire, getting face peels, going to parties in other countries, instead of spending time with him, the way she should be.

"Damian, tell him you don't want to, tell him—," his mother began.

Damian looked at her with wide, innocent eyes while he hugged the secret about her punishment to himself. "But mother, you have always told me my first loyalty and all my obedience must be to Grandfather. This is what Grandfather wants, and so I must go to America with my new parents."

"Damian!" she cried out. "Don't you understand? They're going to take you away from me. For years!"

"But you're always taking yourself away from me," he pointed out. "And I don't have a father, or not one who lives with us, and you won't even tell me who he is. I want to have a father and a mother who isn't always going off for weeks. I want a real family."

"Damian!" she repeated, but he ignored her.

"Is that why I must change my name," he turned to Lady Snowblade, "so I can live in America?"

"It would be easier for you if you did," she replied. "and mark the change in your life. A name like David or Daniel would be a better choice and not too dissimilar. Do you like either of those, or is there some other name you like better?"

"David was a king in the Bible," he remembered, "but Daniel only didn't get eaten by lions. I would rather be David." His caretaker Magali, the one he had...he wasn't going to think about that-his caretaker Magali had been a Christian and had told him many stories.

"Then David you shall be," she said. "For your middle name, to reflect that you are not only from a mixed family, you are coming into a mixed family, what about something Japanese? Yoji is a very good name for a boy. 'Yo' means the sun, sunlight. It would mean that you are bright, warm, full of energy, and steady. These are all good qualities."

"But the sun can still burn you," he said. "And you can't look at it for long because it's too bright. Nothing would be alive without it! Yes, I like that. David Yoji Wilson!" Why not agree? It wasn't as though this was for real.

"You have heard it," Grandfather said to the Major-Domo. "Make out the papers with that name. Now, Damian—that is, David—you must make ready, because you are leaving here tonight. Your clothes are being packed, but if there is anything you want that isn't in your rooms, or anyone you want to say goodbye to other than your mother and me, go and fetch it and say goodbye now. Run along, that's a good boy."

* * *

As Damian left, Talia swiped at her eyes, which were burning. "He doesn't understand!"

"I don't think he does," Yukime Kuwano said, looking after him. "He thinks it's some kind of game and he's playing along. Sir, when he realizes it is real, I anticipate a terrible scene. May I call you for support when it happens?"

"Of course," Ra's al Ghul said. "At any time."

"You are truly fond of the boy," she stated, very gently. How Talia hated the sound of her voice!

Her father sighed. "I am. He isn't all viciousness and pride—not yet. At any rate, this is the solution I have come up with. Now—your embryos. Ten of them." He nodded to the attendant, who brought over the cryounit. Talia tensed up. Let what she had done go unnoticed—let years go by before the wretched woman wanted to put the embryos to use…

Lady Snowblade took it in both hands, smiling. Then the smile faded. "This has been tampered with," she stated.

"Impossible," her father said, frowning. "I gave you my word they would not be touched, and they have not been. The cryogenic storage chamber is in my innermost vault, and monitored with the strictest protocols. All that was done to them was to separate them into two batches, and that is the first of them. The only persons who have access to that vault are..." He broke off.

"Yet they have been tampered with. These are not viable. They are dead. I can tell," she said, and her face had gone hollow, stricken. "I worked for and with Victor Fries for twelve years, and I know. They are dead." She collapsed in her seat. "My daughters…"

"Get one of the genetic engineers up here," Ra's commanded. "Let someone else analyze what has happened."

Talia could not control the sudden, triumphant smile which curled her lips and made her giggle. "Ah-hah. Hah, h-hah, ha…"

"This is not—Daughter, what does this mean?" her father turned to her. "You had the access codes to those vaults."

"She is taking my son from me, so I took her daughters from her. Preemptively, I admit, but it was fair." Yet it was also dishonorable, because he had given his word to the woman, and Talia knew it.

"What did you do?" He put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her up from her seat. His fingers dug painfully into her flesh. She couldn't stop smiling.

Deathstroke stepped up close, threateningly close. "What did she do?" he asked. "Because if there aren't any left, then—."

"I ran both the units through their sterilization cycle, and then refroze them," she said. "One of her is bad enough. You think I would allow twenty more to come into the world? What does it matter to her? She gave them up."

"So that someone else would have them, love them and raise them, if I did not or could not. Not so that they could be used as leverage over me and not so you could kill them," Snowblade said.

Talia didn't even know which of the two men backhanded her and knocked her to the ground, because the blow knocked her unconscious for a little while. When she opened her eyes, Deathstroke was comforting his woman and her father was looking at her with disgust. "Do you have any idea what you did? What you did when you destroyed those? Once isolated, the gene complex for her longevity could have been spliced into your own DNA, and you would look as young as she does for the next two hundred years! You will sleep this night and many nights to come down in the deepest cells of this fortress for this."

"I care not! I am glad she knows. Now she will not cooperate. She won't go along with your plan. You have no hold over her, and I will keep my son," Talia's smile returned.

"You will not," stated Lady Snowblood, and the bones of her face stood out in sharp relief, like blades under the skin. The mouth Talia had thought soft was unyielding. "For if I had any doubt as to the wisdom of your father's plan, even after that disgusting video, this would have quenched it. We will adopt David. Genetically speaking, my daughters are not lost, even though those embryos are dead, for Doctor Fries kept cell samples of each, and with those new ones can be started. Yet those twenty are still dead, and you killed them. For that, I do not forgive you. I will not exact my revenge now, or perhaps ever. We shall see.

"A word of advice to you, though, Talia al Ghul. Stay where it is warm. Stick to places where the temperature never drops below freezing. Winter is not your friend. Snow especially could turn out to be very dangerous to you, and if you were to invest in protections against the supernatural, that would be wise as well. I am not as precognitive as my daughter Rose, but I know a few things. Don't even put ice in your drinks from now on-it would be safest not to risk it. Let's go to the landing strip and wait for David on the plane-I don't want to look at her face any longer," she said to her betrothed.

"Understood," Deathstroke said, and to her father, "We came here because she was in your debt. Now it seems to me it's the other way around, and this one is massive."

"I am aware of that," Ra's al Ghul said, "and I do regret it. For many reasons."

* * *

Damian thought that Lady Snowblood and Deathstroke seemed sad when he got on the plane, and they stayed sad, especially her, all the way to the international airport and even when they got on the plane they were taking to America. He had never flown on a commercial airliner before, so the novelty kept him from wondering too much about them. Probably they were sad because he wasn't really going to be their son. He wasn't especially worried about being away from home for so long, because it would hardly be a proper punishment for his mother if they just turned around and went right back.

So he was happy to pretend for a while longer, and he snuggled up to his 'new mommy' once they were done with dinner on the plane. They made him say please and thank you to the stewardess, and he even did it, which he thought was very nice of him, and he hoped they appreciated it. Lady Snowblade smelled like fresh green apples, and he decided he liked that. His real mother would have told him to sit up straight and not be clingy, but she didn't. Instead she smiled and put an arm around him.

"You're being very good," she said. "Would you like me to tell you a story?"

"Please, Mommy," he said, giving her his winningest smile.

"Which story should it be-I know. Have you ever heard of the yuki-onna?" she asked.

"No."

"This one in particular is very special, very important, and when I'm done, I'll tell you why. Here's a hint: I'm actually called Yukie. So-once upon a time, there were two woodcutters, one old and one young..."

After the story was over, she said, "Can you guess why it's dear to me now? No? Well, I am a yuki-onna. Right now I am the only yuki-onna."

"Really?" he asked, letting skepticism color his voice.

"Really," she replied, and reached across him to touch the window. Hoarfrost bloomed out from where she touched it, and he could feel the cold coming off her hand.

"That doesn't prove anything. Lots of people have cold powers. It doesn't make you special or different," he told her, letting the pretense slip.

She regarded him with cool eyes that suggested she saw through the 'sweet little boy' act and perhaps even through what lay beneath it to his longing for a mother who did tell him stories and let him snuggle up. "Why do you want to punish your mother?" she asked.

"She's a-," he struggled to find the right words, "a very unsatisfactory mother. She's always going away, even when I've been very good, and she says I'm too young to be told who my father is."

"I see. What is your idea of a satisfactory mother?" she asked.

"She should be there when I want her," he immediately replied, " and always tuck me in at night, and let me have my own phone and watch whatever movies I want, not just ones with assassins, and..." he yawned.

Lady Snowblade smiled. "Go to sleep, David."

"He still hasn't caught on," Slade commented under his voice when the boy had fallen fully asleep.

"No, but we have made it through the first three hours of an eleven hour flight. If he could only sleep for seven or eight hours, we would be landing or near to it."

"And there he can have his meltdown when we're on the ground and aren't stuck on the plane," Slade concluded.

"Yes. One of us should text Rose. It would be wrong to spring him on her without warning."

"Already did," he said, "and explained who David really is and that there was a massive obligation involved, which is why we're doing this. He's going to be a handful, you know. Several handfuls."

"At the very least," she said. "I confess I am surprised you still wanted to go through with the adoption, since the pressure to do so is gone."

"Going back on it takes Ra's off the hook," he explained, "and neither he nor his daughter should be let off that easily. This way, he'll owe us for the rest of the boy's life. Besides, I like the kid's spirit, and I like having an apprentice."

* * *

By the time the plane landed and woke Damian up, he was ready for the game to be over. Cranky and hungry, he shuffled along toward the customs desk.

"Rose says she's right outside Gate D, and she has coffee, tea, milk, a box of fresh baked breakfast pastries, and the address of the nearest place where one can get a marriage license," Lady Snowblade told Deathstroke.

"If that girl was any more of an angel she's going to sprout wings to go with her new name," he said.

"Who's Rose?" Damian asked.

"Your big sister," Slade Wilson said, "my daughter from a previous marriage. She's sixteen. We'll be meeting up with her very soon."

Damian said nothing. This game was going too far, and it was time to end it. When they reached the desk, Lady Snowblade picked him up so the official could see him when he read his passport. "And this is David Koji Wilson," said the woman.

"No," he replied. "I'm Damian, and I want to go home **now**."

"I'm sorry," Lady Snowblood said. "We only just adopted him, and he is still adjusting, as are we all. His name was originally Damian, and all the paperwork is there."

"Okay," the woman said. "Yes, it's all in order. Welcome to the United States, David."

"_Damian_," he insisted. "I want to go home now! I want my mommy. My _real_ mommy."

"Adopted is real," said the woman. "I wish the three of you luck."

"No," he said. "We're getting back on the plane NOW and going home. I don't want to play anymore! I don't want a sister. I don't want another mother. I want to go home. I order you to take me home!" He struggled in Lady Snowblood's arms, writhing and kicking to be free.

"Your home is with us now," she told him. "I know you want your old home, but that is not possible. We adopted you, David. You're ours now."

"No. No! I want to go home! You have to take me home! Let me GO! Let me go, or I'll kill you!" He redoubled his effort to be free, punched her in the face, then grabbed her sleeve and wrenched it to get her arms loose. Fabric tore, and she lost her grip on him. He fell to the floor and ran back toward the plane.

"Call his grandfather," Deathstroke called back over his shoulder, and went after him. In only a few strides, he had scooped Damian up and tucked him under his arm in a thoroughly humiliating way, so he was looking backward and his rear end was forward. "First ground rule. Never, ever, hit your mother ever again. Or any other woman or girl close to you."

"She is NOT my mother," he howled. "You're NOT my father. I don't have to listen to you! PUT ME DOWN!"

"No," the scary man said. "She is your mother. I am your father. This isn't a game or a joke or a trick. Your grandfather arranged this, and you're going to hear it again from him."

They were back at the desk, where Lady Snowblade was apologizing again to the official. "Thank you," she said as she accepted the passports back, "and I am sorry for the noise and the inconvenience."

"It's all right. Like I said, good luck. You're going to need it."

They went a short distance away where there were some chairs behind some potted plants. Lady Snowblade was waiting there, and she held out the phone. "Hello, David," said his grandfather.

"No, Grandfather," he wailed. "I want to come home and be _Damian_. I don't _want_ to be their son. I, I, I, I promise I'll be good. I won't do anything wrong ever again. I want to go home. I want you and Mommy and-."

"I'm sorry, David, but no." His grandfather sounded tired and old. "I'm sorry you did not understand this was for real. You did not do anything you knew to be wrong. It was your mother who did something wrong, and unfortunately, I can see no other way to help you than this. I tried. I tried by finding Magali to care for you. She was a good woman, but you killed her."

"I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"

"That doesn't matter. She is dead. If you stay here, the only child of my daughter, in my household, where you are the only child, you will continue to be a spoilt little princeling who terrorizes the staff, and what you will grow into-no. I chose the Wilsons very carefully, and I believe that in their care, you have a chance of growing up into a sane and honorable human being rather than a monster. But I am not abandoning you. I will call once a week to see how you are getting on, and we will talk. You are David Koji Wilson now, and I hope you will grow up to be someone I can be proud of."

"No! What if, what if I kill them? Can I come home then?" he blurted out.

"People have been trying to kill Slade Wilson since before your parents were born, and he continues to be alive despite their best efforts. No, David. If I am so unhappy about your killing Magali, who was merely a servant, what makes you think killing Lady Snowblood and Deathstroke will change my mind? If somehow you were to do so, I would send someone from the League for you-but it would not be to bring you home."

"But..." He could not pretend he did not understand what his grandfather meant. "But don't you love me?" he whispered.

"I do. That is why I have sent you away, although I know you will not understand. Goodbye, David. I hope you will be happy with your new family, in time."

The call cut off. He could hear the deadness in his ear. He looked up at the sad face of his new mother, and the stern face of his new father, and he burst into tears. His mother put her arms around him, and held him while he cried and cried and cried.

* * *

A/N: So I keep saying the next chapter will be the last, and I keep pushing it back a chapter. This one went on so long, and I have still more things to say. Plus I can't end it here with David so miserable. Again, the next chapter will probably be the last.

Thank you to my Guest, to Batmanismyhero and to my best-of-besties, Swordstitcher!


	60. Rose, David, Yukie, Tim: Lost and Found

Rose craned her neck, looking around for her family while trying to keep the drinks level on the box of pastries, walk, and carry the bag of presents all at the same time. The issue wasn't the weight, it was the awkwardness.

She wasn't sure how she felt yet about becoming a big sister so soon and without warning. Her dad and Yukie certainly didn't need her permission to adopt a kid, but _this_ kid?

The message had read: '_We're flying into Reno Int'l about eight thirty tomorrow morning, gate D. We're bringing with us a four year old boy we've just adopted. His name is now David Koji Wilson. Remember, all of Yukie's family was in debt to Ra's, and he let them out of the contract. He only agreed because of what we could do for him. David is his grandson, and he's afraid Talia is raising him to be the next Victor Zsasz or something similar. His fears are not groundless. Farming the boy out to us is his solution. It remains to be seen if this will fly. Needless to say, who his mother and grandfather are is something you shouldn't share with your friends._'

Victor Zsasz was a psycho from Gotham, and he was bad even by the standards of that place. It was like he thought he was the only real person in the world, so he could do what he liked with them. Zsasz referred to everybody as zombies who needed to be put out of their misery and almost always posed his victims like he was setting a scene in a movie or something, then carved a line into his skin for each one, to keep track of them. He said it was the only time he ever felt anything.

And Ra's al Ghul, the head of the League of Assassins, was afraid that was how his grandson would turn out, so afraid that he was sending the boy away. That was scary all on its own, because normally the Assassin believed he and his family were perfect and superior to everyone else on Earth. For _him_ to swallow his pride, and for her father to say al Ghul's fears _weren't_ groundless…

Her first reaction was that she wanted to resent this new little brother for intruding on her life, her place in the family, and be jealous of whatever attention and affection he got, but on the heels of that, a little voice asked and answered the question: _What if Yukie had been resentful and jealous when I showed up in Japan? Then I wouldn't have had a great time for more than two months, I would never have gotten to know her or made up with Dad. He would never have learned how to loosen up and share things with me._

If Yukie could give her a chance with an open mind and an open heart, she could give David one, too. Even if he were a psycho in the making.

Was that them? She saw a seating area partly screened by plants, and a head of white hair that looked like her father's. Rose headed toward the spot, hearing someone crying with the unashamed abandon of a child.

It was them. Yukie was holding a little boy half in her lap, rocking him and making soothing sounds while he cried on her, much as Rose had a few weeks before. His face was buried against her middle, as if he were trying to burrow back into the womb. Rose noticed she was wearing a silk suit, and it would have been a nice one if it weren't soaked with tears, didn't have had a long rent in one sleeve or dirty shoeprints on it. Rose had taken a semester of art history, and the two of them together reminded her a little of Michelangelo's Pieta, if Christ were a little boy who wore more clothes and was face-down.

Her father was watching the two of them with a not unsympathetic expression on his face. She caught his eye, and raised her eyebrows at him to ask: _What's going on?_

"He's just realized this is for real," Slade Wilson explained.

Hearing that, the boy sat up and hiccuped, making eye contact with Rose. His face was puffy and red from crying, creased from being pressed against Yukie's clothes. He had wavy black hair and light olive skin, but his eyes were blue-green, an unusual combination. He hiccuped again, and asked, "If you're named Rose, how come your hair is blue and not pink?"

"Because pink is too girly and blue goes better with my armor," she replied, "Hi, Mom. This must be David. Hey, finally I get to be the big sister! Dad, can you take the drinks before I spill them? There's coffee for you, tea for Mom, and milk for us kids. Are you hungry, David?" She opened up the bakery box and held it out to him. "There's apple, apricot, blueberry and cherry. Take whatever ones you like as long as you leave an apple one for Mom, they're her favorite. I bet you'll feel better once you've had something to eat."

He looked at the box and reached out a hand. "What do we say?" Yukie prompted.

"Thank you," he said, and took an apricot pastry.

"You're welcome," she replied with a smile. "Here's your milk and a napkin."

Yukie took an apple one and her tea, and then Rose offered the box to her father, saying. "Dad, I'm sorry, I couldn't get the rental car. They just wouldn't give the keys to a sixteen-year-old with a brand new license, even with a valid credit card. Go figure."

"That's all right," he said, taking a bite out of his pastry. "Thanks, this hits the spot. All right, David and I will go get the car if you'll help your mother collect the luggage. Then we go into Reno, get the license and get hitched. Then we head to Incline Village, have lunch, and look around the house. It's pretty much unfurnished, so we'll have to spend the night elsewhere. Any objections or suggestions?" He looked around at his family.

Yukie had her phone out. "If we can be at the house by…one-thirty, I have a surprise."

"What sort of surprise?" he asked.

"Dad! If she told you, it wouldn't be a surprise! There's a long line at the car rental. Better get going."

"Wait, it's cold out there. David needs a jacket," Yukie found a carryon among several others, pulled out a child-sized coat, and helped him on with it. They watched him trudge away after Slade with his head down and his shoulders slumped.

"Okay, I've seen kids act more down than they really are to try and milk the situation. Heck, when I was a kid, I even did that myself sometimes. Him, though—at least right now, I don't think that's an act," Rose said.

"His grandfather just told him he would have him killed rather than allow him to come home," Yukie explained. "I heard both sides of the conversation."

"Yeah, that would do it," Rose nodded. She looked Yukie up and down. "How are you holding up? Better than your outfit, I hope."

"Yes. Although I may not be able to say for certain for another fourteen years, when David turns eighteen. While I did hope to have children other than you, I never imagined it would happen so fast. I wanted to wait until you were in college, at least. You, though, are still my first, my longed-for daughter. And I will never love him or any other more than I do you."

* * *

David followed his new father, because what else could he do? He was only four, and four-year olds, however intelligent, are not given to deep introspection. Children naturally assume they are at the center of everything, which sometimes makes them feel like gods, but usually makes them feel like they're responsible for everything bad that happens. For example, 'If I didn't leave my toys all over everywhere, Daddy and Mommy wouldn't be getting a divorce'. He felt very small and lost and alone.

"David, you don't have to look at me or talk to me, but you have to walk where I can see you," Slade Wilson said.

David ignored him and walked slower, letting himself trail behind by several paces that became several yards. That was a mistake, as he very quickly learned. Several people with large rolling suitcases cut in between them, and then he couldn't see his new father anymore. He looked around at the forest of legs and herds of wobbling luggage. His mother had said that Americans were indolent, corpulent, and complacent, and one day he would grind them under his heel, but right now he was in danger of being trampled underfoot.

He had been raised entirely within the League of Assassins, occasionally moving from fortress to compound, traveling by private plane and landing on private airstrips. Everyone around him had been part of the League or worked for it, and they knew exactly who he was. He'd never been to the outside world. He'd never seen so many strangers in his life. Nobody knew who he was. Nobody _cared_ who he was.

His heart started pounding, and his breath came fast and shallow. Where had Deathstroke gone? Was his new family going to leave him there? Did they not want him? They were going to leave him there, and he didn't know his phone number, or his home address. He was alone, all alone…

Scion of the great Ra's al Ghul or not, genius level intelligence notwithstanding, he did what all small children did in that situation. He panicked, screamed and ran around looking for the only adults he knew. People passing by gave him an incurious glance and kept moving. He wasn't their child, and therefore he was none of their business.

As suddenly as he was gone, his new father was there. "_This_ is why I said you had to stay where I could see you. Come here," he explained, and picked him up. He was getting ready to protest being tucked under Deathstroke's arm again, but instead the man set David on his shoulders.

"Are you balanced?" he asked, his hands supporting David around his waist.

"Yes," David said, although he still felt a little shaky.

"Good. Just don't play with my eye patch."

"What did you adopt me for? If I'm so bad I can't live at home, why do _you_ want me?"

"It's not that you're that bad. It's that your mother is bad for you, and if the two of you are under the same roof, you won't get away from her influence." He shifted his grip from David's waist to his ankles, and started walking.

"But why is she bad for me?" He looked around from his place on Slade's shoulders, bobbing up and down with every step the big man took. Everyone looked so funny when you were up so high! One day he would be that tall, he reminded himself.

"That's a question where you have to find the answer for yourself for it to have any meaning," his new father told him.

David wasn't sure he understood that. Instead of replying, he asked, "What happened to your eye?" Being up on Deathstroke's shoulders as he was, he had a very good view of the man's head.

"My ex-wife, Rose's birthmother, shot me."

"What did she do that for?" David asked.

"She was very angry at me for letting our son get hurt," he replied.

"Oh. What about the scar where it looks like somebody tried to cut your ear off?"

"That was Yukie's doing. It was during a duel," Deathstroke smiled. "That was how we met."

"Oh. Do I have a brother? You said you had a son. What happened to him?"

"They. I had two sons from my first marriage. You ask too many nosey questions… Grant took a medication he shouldn't have, had a bad reaction to it, and died. Joey is alive, but he has powers that he can't control. That means he can't live at home or take care of himself, so he's somewhere that they can."

"Oh. Are you…glad to have a son again?" he asked, tentative.

"Are you glad to have a father?" the man countered.

"I don't know yet," David said.

"And neither do I." Deathstroke replied. "Yet."

* * *

Yukie thought that David was in better spirits by the time he and Slade came to pick them up. She smiled at him and let a tendril of the love she already felt for the boy brush him, a hint of the powers she now possessed. Not enough to control or alter his mind or his heart, just enough that he would know he was loved. Hearts, it seemed, were elastic things. Just when you thought it couldn't hold any more, it stretched a little further, enough to fit one more, enough to cram in more love. As with everything, the key was to use it, to exercise it and keep in training.

"Now," she announced. "Next item on the agenda: get married."

The wedding chapel had changing rooms for both bride and groom. Yukie had picked out an outfit that she hoped encompassed all the meanings and symbolic associations. White and red—. In Asia, red traditionally was the color of happiness and celebration. The white was not simply about purity, as it was supposedly in the West, but about being willing to change, to adapt. White cloth was undyed, and so it could take on any color you chose. A blank book waiting to be written on, a future waiting to happen.

The suit she had been wearing, which was the one out of Talia's closet, went in the trash. Between the tear, the tears, and the footprints, it was a loss. Rose helped her by trying to get the creases and folds out of her clothes. First the red blouse which buttoned on the side, then the white skirt and the red shoes.

"The last time I did this, it was in full formal bridal kimono, with a long uchikake gown over it. I wanted a western style wedding with a western style dress, but my parents insisted it had to be Shinto. Renting it cost over two thousand dollars, and that was over twenty years ago when two thousand dollars was worth more.

"The uchikake gown was heavy brocade, stiff and scratchy, and the headdress was heavy too. My neck hurt from trying to keep it motionless. My mother's friends helped get me ready, and one of them stuck hairpins in my head as though I were a ushi no koku mairi doll_**." **_Yukie coiled her hair atop her head and carefully slid pins into it here and there.

"A what?" Rose paused to ask as she ran the shrug over the steamer. "What does 'ox-hour shrine-visit' have to do with dolls?" 'Ox-hour shrine-visit' was the literal translation of 'ushi no koko mairi'.

"That's what we call a voodoo doll in Japan," Yukie explained. "The phrase is what it is because you visit a shrine at the hour of the ox—that's between one and three in the morning—and you nail the doll to a tree."

"Ox-hour shrine-visit, I get it now," Rose said, nodding. "I know exactly what you wore last time. Haruko shared pictures. You really looked uncomfortable. She said when they foisted her off on Isamu, she told them if they tried wrapping her up in that kind of shroud, she'd write all over it with lipstick and they wouldn't get the rental deposit back."

"Haruko is my hero," Yukie stated. "I wish our birth order had been reversed so_ I_ could have learned from _her_. Where did I put Grandmother's hair stick—ah, there it is." The long gold dangles hung down over her ear, tickling it.

"And here's your shrug." It too was white, but with red embroidery. Rose held it so she could slip her arms into it. "Now, you've got something old, which is your grandmother's hair thingy, this outfit is new, you're wearing my spiked wristlet, which is borrowed, and now you just need something blue. I've got that covered, too."

As Yukie settled the short jacket on her shoulders, Rose took a little box out of her purse.

"I hope you like it," she said, shyly, holding it out. "It's by the same designer who did the chain Dad gave you for Christmas. I wanted to get your birthstone, but then I found out you were born in July and I can't afford rubies. So I looked up alternatives, and since you're a Cancer, you can wear moonstones. I can afford a moonstone."

Yukie opened the box to find a pendant inside. "What a beautiful soft blue," she said. "Thank you, Rose. I love it." She gave the girl a quick hug before she put the gift on the chain and said, "I felt sick while I was getting ready for that other wedding. Not only butterflies in my stomach sick, but because my mother's friends made me drink these vile fertility potions, traditional concoctions. I'm so glad they didn't work! This is better, so much better."

She had been afraid the sick feeling would return, the fear of being trapped resurfacing at the worst time, but it hadn't. All she felt was joy. Taking up the bouquet of red roses and baby's breath, she straightened her skirt and left the room.

Slade and David were waiting at the altar. The four of them, the minister, and the official witness were the only ones there. That was enough.

When she reached her love, he gave her a good look, and then his face split into a wide grin. "Not bad," he said. "I'll go through with it."

"Daaad!" Rose wailed, and smacked him in the arm. It wasn't really necessary. She heard the words underneath the teasing.

"Dearly beloved," the minister began, and so they were married.

* * *

Rose sent pictures to her friends, of course, and among them was Tim Drake, who looked at the family of four and read about the little boy the Wilsons had just adopted. There was something very familiar about the rather glum, lost look on the child's face, and after a few more minutes, he realized what it was.

Many years before, an insensitive photo journalist had ducked under crime scene tape to capture a picture of a newly orphaned Bruce Wayne as he sat on the steps near his parents' bodies. This boy looked a lot like the child Batman had been the night he lost his parents. So much like Batman, in fact, that he sent the picture to Nightwing, AKA Dick Greyson, the original Robin, asking him if he was crazy or did Dick see it too?

Dick sent back a message pointing out that men in the costumed adventurer business were generally of a type, so much so that Superman and Batman could be brothers, and allowing for different skin, hair, and eye colors, so could Green Arrow, Cyborg, and a dozen others he could name. Even Slade Wilson and Batman looked rather alike, with their strong jawlines and stern features. He himself and Tim could be brothers, even Bruce's sons, just going by appearance. So, yes, he saw a resemblance, but not to read too much into it.

* * *

"Hello, and welcome to the Farmhouse restaurant—oh, weren't the two of you here at Christmas?" asked the pretty lady from the desk at the front.

"Yes, we were. How nice that you remember us!" his new mother smiled.

"Well, you were just such a striking couple," the lady said. "Here, right this way. The table over there has a view of the mountains. This must be your family. I can see the resemblance. Your daughter clearly takes after her father and your little boy—he's somewhere in between you two. I'll get someone to bring you a booster seat for the little guy. Meanwhile, here are three regular menus and one children's' menu."

"Thank you," his new father said, and they sat.

Everything that happened that day pointed out to David how little he really knew. He had never been to a restaurant before. When his mother—his _other_ mother, that is—was there, they sometimes ate together, but otherwise, he ate in his quarters. "What is this for?" he asked, looking at the paper with the list of food on it.

"That's the menu," Rose explained. "You choose what you want to eat from what they have listed there. See—for starters, you can choose apple wedges with peanut butter or a small green salad with ranch dressing. Which one of them sounds like something you'd like to eat?"

"Don't they just bring you food?" he asked. He had no idea what ranch dressing was.

"Yes, but first you have to decide what you want, and then they make it," she said.

He still thought it was strange. At home, he ate whatever they served. When he ate alone, it was a nutritionally balanced but bland diet devised by the scientists in the compound laboratory. When with his mother, it was whatever she liked. Neither way allowed for any choice. "Can I have the apple wedges?"

"Sure, you just have to tell our waiter when he comes back. Now, what about the main course? Do you need help reading it?" Rose asked.

"I can read," he said, defensive. The problem was, there were too many choices. Macaroni and cheese, grilled chicken breast, spaghetti and meatballs in marinara sauce-it went on and on. There were eight things to choose from! How was he supposed to do it? He'd never even heard of some of them.

"Breaded chicken fingers? Chickens don't have fingers!"

His new mother smiled and turned toward them—she and his new father had been doing a lot of looking into each other's eyes since they got married, half ignoring them—and said, "That means they cut the chicken breast up into long strips you can eat with your fingers. They should be very tasty. Would you like to try those?"

"Okay," he said. Dessert! That was easy, there were only two choices again. Fresh fruit compote or vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. The nutritionists had impressed on him that ice cream was bad and eating it led to obesity and diabetes, but sometime Magali had snuck him a little, and it tasted so much better than anything else he had to eat. "Can I have ice cream?"

"Yes, of course!" his new mother replied. "Today is a special day."

The waiter came back, and after listening to how the others ordered their food, he ordered his the same way, and his new mother rewarded him with another smile and a nod of approval.

"Okay, now that's done," Rose said, pulling out a bag, "it's time for presents! I already gave Mom my gift, but this is for you, Dad. Kitaro helped me pick it out."

Slade Wilson took the large, rectangular package and opened it. "A set of antique sword fittings, framed," he announced. "Fine ones, too. Although I expect your mother will get just as much pleasure out of looking at these as I will."

"Museum quality, and the provenance papers are in the frame behind the matting," Rose pointed out. "Dad collects antique and unusual weapons," she explained to David.

"Which are look-but-don't-touch, not without permission and one of us there," he warned the boy. "Thank you, Rose. These will look great on the library wall."

"You're welcome! Now, this is for Mom from Kitaro, as an apology for not just telling you what was going on. Haruko and I helped him with it." She passed the woman a smaller rectangle.

His new mother unwrapped it, and her face went very surprised. "It's a picture of me—and Kayako! In our graduation robes. I know it must have been done with digital imaging software, but…I'm very glad to have this." She gave the frame a little hug.

"Who is Kayako?" David asked.

His new mother held the picture so he could see it. There she was, next to a girl who looked enough like her to be her sister, but sadder and frailer. "She…was my best friend growing up, from the time I was your age up until she died. I didn't have a photograph of her, because…it's complicated. I am very, very grateful for this. I'll have to let Kitaro know."

"He's with the Titans right now, so it'll be easy." Rose said. "Kitaro is a kitsune magic-user," she explained for David's benefit. "We met him in Japan—some time you'll hear the whole story. Anyway, there' still one more present in this bag." She took out a big, squarish box wrapped in blue paper with boats on it, and handed it to him. "Welcome to the family, little brother."

He hadn't been expecting this, so he tore into it with excitement. It was a set of books in a slipcase. "The Complete Harry Potter Collection," he read aloud.

"Uh-huh! I loved these when I was growing up. I don't know if you're reading chapter books yet, but I know both Mom and I will read them to you if you want. Have you seen the movies?"

"No," he said. "Everything I watch or read has to make me ready to take my place in the world, so it has to be about assassins. My moth—my _other_ mother ordered it so."

"_This_ mother believes that reading and loving what you read is more important," his new mother said. "And I have never read those, but I know they're very popular, so we can discover them together. Ah! Here's our starters. Put your books away, and let's eat."

After lunch, there was more driving, but eventually they got to a strange, low building on a cliff overlooking the lake. "Here we are," his new father said. "Home."

* * *

A/N: Yeah, again I'm dragging this out into yet ANOTHER not-the-last chapter. It was too long! Today I'm posting this in a hurry before we leave for the Memorial Day stuff this weekend, so I'm not doing the personal thanks right now. But I really do appreciate that you're reading and sometimes reviewing!


	61. David, Bruce: Home

Was this really their house? It didn't look—wait, his new father raised a remote, and the garage doors slid up. But if this was the garage, where was the house itself?

"What are all the packages by the front door?" Slade asked as he pulled the rental into the garage.

"Dishes and things I bought in Cherishing Girls Village," Yukie replied. "Remember, it was the home of several traditional artisans. It was simpler to have them shipped directly here rather than deal with them as luggage."

"So that's the surprise? Souvenirs we'll use regularly."

"No. _That _is the surprise." She pointed to a truck which was driving up. There was another truck right behind it.

"Living Concepts," his father read aloud. "You ordered furniture?"

"Ordered and paid for," she said. "I was prepared to buy a house on my own and furnish it. Since you already own the house, this is my contribution to the household. Don't worry, I chose pieces that will live up to, but not detract from, the thirty million dollar view."

"Here I was thinking there would be weeks of 'Which swatch do you like?' and 'I like the arms on this one but not the legs.' ahead of us," he commented, parking the car and getting out.

"I hope I would never be so boring. At the end of the day, it's how comfortable the chair is, not how it looks," she replied, getting out on her side. "And I doubt we will lose sleep over buying the sofa with the rounded arms rather than the square."

Rose was already out of the rental, and he wriggled out of his seatbelt to catch up.

The furniture trucks were parking in the driveway, and out of the first emerged a young woman with aggressively red hair and a great many freckles. She was carrying a large orchid plant with white and yellow flowers. "Ms. Kuwano? I'm Jenny Gallagher. It's so exciting to meet you in person! This is our assembly and installation team. That's Hugh, next to him is Mike, and there's Barb."

"It is very nice to meet you all," his new mother smiled at them. "This is my husband Slade, our daughter Rose and our son David."

"Let me get the house opened up for you," his father said. As he passed her, he asked under his voice, "You didn't bankrupt yourself for this, did you? I never expected you to cover the expenses on your own. Or at all."

"Of course not," she replied. "Remember how I told you about brokering Dr. Fries' deal with Itachi? I took my share in shares of stock."

"Ah," he said. To the furniture movers, he said, "Mind the boxes, we just got back from two months' vacation."

"If the boxes are coming inside, we can handle them too," Jenny said. "This is for you, as a housewarming gift. It's a dendrobium."

"Thank you so much! All right. David? I have a task for you. On the first floor, which is four levels down, there are two bedrooms. Please go and choose which one you want. Rose, can you put this on the kitchen counter for now? Thank you." She handed the flower off to his new sister and turned to the job of helping move boxes.

David went into the entryway and stopped. There weren't walls, only windows. There was an elevator, but it was glass. The stairs were glass too, frosted glass. They could have been made of ice. It wasn't that he was _afraid_ to walk on them, or to go in the elevator. Not _afraid, _exactly, just…

"David?" Rose interrupted his thoughts. "Can I tell you something? I know these stairs must be perfectly safe and very strong, but I've never walked on them before, and I'm a little nervous. Could you hold my hand when we go down them? It'll make me feel better, and after this first time, I know I'll be okay."

He knew she was only saying so because she saw _him_ not going down them, but he was brave. "We'll be brave together," he said, and held out his hand. Step by step they went down the stairs, around and around, because the staircase was sort of oval shaped.

"This must be my room here," Rose said, pausing on the first landing, "but there's nothing in it yet. I think the next floor down has the living room, dining room and kitchen. And the gym and spa."

They went further down. "Is this really a proper house? It's so…." Words failed him. He had been prepared to sneer at it for being so small compared to the places he was used to, but the way it was all glass made it like they were living in the whole world. The lake spread out as far as he could see. "The, um, corners are all wrong. Nothing's square." It was also empty and echo-y, which didn't help.

"It is an _amazing_ house," Rose told him, "but you're right. It's not the usual sort of house. My birthmother would have hated all these different angles. She liked the sort of houses she grew up in, very Palladian. Okay, this is the right level!" The solid floor was nice to walk on. You could believe it wouldn't do anything underfoot, but she was wrong in one way. The living room, dining room and kitchen weren't three different rooms, they were all one big room.

He said as much to Rose. She answered, "Well, this way, if we want to, we can move the furniture out of the way for martial arts training. The gym's not big enough for anything but exercise equipment. I bet that's what Dad has in mind."

She crossed the room and put the plant on the counter. "Let's go see what the bedrooms are like downstairs."

The next floor down was their parents', but under that were the two bedrooms with a room between them. The floor here was at ground level, which was very reassuring. The wall facing the lake was still all windows, though. He looked first at one room and then at the other. One of them had strange angles but the other one had properly square corners. "This one," he decided.

"Great! You know, I think they'll be busy with things for a while. Why don't we go outside and down to the lake?"

The room in between the bedrooms had a door going outside, and their shoes crunched on the snow. A rocky path wound down to the lake, and they carefully picked their way down the stairs. The waterfront was rocky too, only smooth, water-rounded pebbles. It was a very big lake, and because it was a clear winter day, everything was blue and white.

"That boat dock is ours," Rose pointed, "and the storage shed there." They went out on the dock, because what else was there to do? When they got to the end of it, Rose stopped and said, "When grownups tried to tell me the kind of thing I'm going to say to you, I'd always look at them like, what do _you_ know? Whatever _you_ went through has nothing to do with what _I'm_ going through. It's _not_ the same. And you know, it really isn't. But you're in a family now where we all had lives that sucked growing up, for various reasons. You can hate all of us for a while if you need to, we can take it. Aaaah, scratch it, forget I said anything. You don't want to hear it any more than I did. Huh?"

The 'Huh?' didn't seem to have anything to do with what she had been talking about. David looked where she was looking, and saw a young girl climbing up the stairs from the water. She was soaking wet and not dressed for the cold, but she didn't seem bothered by either. She was Asian, probably Japanese.

"You're Kiyomi-san, aren't you?" Rose asked. "I saw you with the rest of Mom's retinue, but we didn't have a chance to meet. I'm Rose."

The girl nodded as she climbed. "You are Yukime-sama's chosen daughter. I am very glad to meet you."

She bowed when she reached the dock, and Rose returned it. "You bow too, David," she said, tugging at his sleeve. "This is my new brother, David. Mom and Dad just adopted him." He bowed, but he did it with reluctance.

"David-san," the girl said, bowing to him as well.

"You really weren't kidding when you said you could find Mom anywhere on Earth, were you? Are the others here as well?" Rose was asking, but he was noticing the girl's hands, which were greenish and webbed.

"Yes—but the boy. Does he not know?" Kiyomi asked.

"I don't think anyone's filled him in yet," Rose said, before crouching down to look him in the face. "Okay, David. There's something you need to know about Mom. She's a yokai. That's a supernatural being from Japan. There are a lot of different kinds. Kiyomi is a cross between two of them, nure-onago and kappa. Mom is a yuki-onna. It means 'Snow Woman'. In fact, she's not just a yuki-onna, she's the only one, and that means she's the Snow Elemental."

Kiyomi nodded, "She is the spirit of snow and the Queen of Winter. We call her the kami-yuki. She is very important and ranks very high among yokai. At least of the third rank, after Nurahiyon and the greater tengu."

"She told me a story on the plane," David said. "No, you're fooling with me. She _isn't_."

"She sure is. Why do you doubt it?" Rose asked.

"Because if she were, she'd make sure everybody knew, and she'd have all kinds of people waiting on her," he said with certainty.

"People waiting on her, yes," Kiyomi nodded. "I am one of them. Uchiteru and I guard your castle from the waterfront. Ay and Un will guard it inside and out on the ground, and Genki will drive away…small things, vermin and such. Sadness and melancholy as well, I think. Then the akaname cleans bathrooms while the tofu-kozo help in the kitchen and do other such chores. Although seeing this castle, I think a pair of guards who can fly would also be useful. A couple of tengu, maybe, or ittan momen."

"I'll tell her that. I'd say come on up to the house now, but there are humans all over it, and they don't need to know about you." Rose screwed up her face.

"Are those real words or are you making this all up?" David blurted out.

"Of course they are real. Uchiteru!" The girl raised her voice and called out over the lake. There was a ripple which crested far away, then swelled. A huge, scaly head and neck broke the surface of the water. It was a sea monster!

"Wow, he's a lot bigger than he was the other day!" Rose wondered.

"His size depends on the body of water he's in," Kiyomi informed them. "He was out of the water then, and this is a very big lake."

The long scaly creature was swimming toward them. He was tall enough to tower over the boat dock, and he had a long snout, horns like an antelope, and tendrils or whiskers sprouting from his face. "Kiyomi-san—ah, and Yukime-sama's daughter," he said, his voice sounding like wind blowing over the lake. "I greet you." Uchiteru bowed his head in respect. Then he leaned over to sniff at David, who stifled a squeak and stood his ground. "And who is this?"

Rose explained. "My newly adopted little brother, David Koji. He's skeptical about the whole kami-yuki business."

The sea monster—although he was really a lake monster, not a sea monster—made a noise David decided was a laugh. "I think he grows less skeptical by the moment. Please tell the Lady that we are very glad to have entered her service, and that the lake here is glad we have come. Its own guardians have been gone for many years, and it was lonely. Farewell." Kiyomi also waved goodbye as she leapt to Uchiteru's back, and they disappeared under the water.

"Can we go back to the house now?" David asked his new sister. "Before…" Before more monsters showed up? "Before our feet get cold," he finished.

"Sure. We didn't tell them which room you wanted, anyway. Oh, there's Ay and Un. And Genki!"

At the shore end of the dock sat two big dogs, strange looking dogs, and a few feet apart from them sat a kitten who was busy washing his face. "Now I know they look like dogs and a cat, but they're supernatural creatures too, and just as intelligent as we are. I greet you, Ay-san, Un-san, and Genki-san." Rose bowed, and he bowed too. "We are honored that you chose to join our mother's retinue." She went on to explain who he was, and all three…animals? Yokai? listened as though they could follow every word.

"Genki, would you show David what you can do? I think he doubts how special you are."

The kitten yawned, stretched—and changed into a much larger, spark-spitting monster cat. "Wow, I think you've gotten better at that than last time. Way to go, Genki!" Rose praised him. "David, do I have to ask if the cat got your tongue?" she teased him.

"Uh—," he sought for something to say. "Do you still like to chase sticks like regular dogs do?"

The wagging tails and bright eyes said, 'Yes, we do!' So they did, with happy barks and lolling tongues, as David and Rose found sticks and pinecones, with Genki darting in and out to tag their ankles now and then. David laughed and laughed as he never had before.

Then his mother appeared on the scene. "I thought I heard the sounds of fun out here! I'm so glad. But the furniture movers are ready to put your room together—if they knew which one you wanted. Also, I've made hot chocolate. Time to come in, all of you."

"Okay, Mommy," David said, breathless from running and laughing. He hardly even knew what he had called her.

Five Years Later:

Batman sat in his 'Batmobile' and waited on the shoulder of the backroad. His intel said the boy rode his bike along the path which paralled this road every day after school, and it was nearly time. Lake Tahoe was so far removed from Gotham City that it was practically on another world. Peaceful, scenically beautiful, somewhere a boy could still ride a bike through the woods. A very good place to raise a child, were it not for the man who was raising him. If it had been practically anyone other than Deathstroke, he would have left his son to grow up in ignorance and safety.

He switched to 'detective vision', the computer augmented mods built into his mask and cowl. Around him the late spring landscape morphed into a shadow half-world of grey, save for the figure made of blue light which accelerated toward him with all the speed a pair of strong young legs could manage.

Batman touched a control on the Batmobile's dashboard and spoke into the microphone, "David Koji Wilson."

The blue figure backpedaled to slow and stop himself. Hm, there was a second life form with him, in his backpack, something small. A pet, perhaps?

He watched the boy lean the bike against a tree and climb up to the road. "Whoa," he heard his son say. "Batman?"

He lowered the car window. "Yes. I need to talk to you."

"If you're recruiting for a new Robin, I have to warn you, you'll have to go through my dad first. I mean you'd have to fight him, and after you're done with _him_, Mom. He's tougher than she is, but she has the 'Tiger Mother' thing going and she's…creative. If you know who _I_ am then you know who _they_ are. Besides, I don't want to move to Gotham. I like it here." The boy set his jaw. He could see, when he looked, traces of Talia, traces of Thomas and Martha Wayne in his face. "All my friends are here, and my school is okay, as far as schools go, and in about six months, I'm going to have a baby sister. Plus there's no good skiing anywhere near there, and the water's polluted. My whole life is here."

"Get in the car," he ordered.

David backed off a few steps. "No, thank you. A lot of people could make or buy a Batman suit and a Batmobile, and I have no proof you're for real. I'll stay over here."

Batman sighed, and opened the car door, stepping out onto the last crusts of ice and crunching them under his boots. "Very well."

The boy looked him up and down. "In broad daylight out here, you don't look scary. Okay. What did you want to talk to me about?"

The Dark Knight paused. "When was the last time you saw or spoke to your real mother?"

"This morning at breakfast," he replied. "After she got over the morning sickness."

"I meant—." Yukime Wilson was pregnant? She was fifty years old, or close to it.

"I know who you meant. Grandfather's daughter, my genetic mother. A couple of years ago, when Grandfather died, she came here and tried to reclaim me, but it didn't happen. My mom and dad quashed that idea." A little cat face poked up from over his shoulder.

"What is that in your backpack?" Batman asked, momentarily diverted.

"This is Genki," David replied, reaching up to scratch the cat under the chin. "He's my therapy cat, licensed and everything. He goes where I do."

"Why do you need a therapy animal?" he asked.

"I'm prone to hyperactivity and impulse control. It was either medication or a therapy animal, and my mom doesn't like medicating children when there's any other option," the boy replied frankly. "Anyhow, I don't know where Talia al Ghul is or what she's doing. I don't even remember her that well. She was gone a lot of the time doing other things, so I can't say I miss her. Not like I would my _real_ mom."

"What of your…genetic father?" he chose the words more carefully this time.

David shrugged. "No idea who or where he is, or if I even have one, technically speaking. I wasn't conceived like regular people. I was spliced together. My father is Slade Wilson. He's the one who's raising me."

"And is he a good father?" Batman asked.

"He's okay. He's gone a lot on business, but when he is there, we do stuff."

"And he trains you in martial arts," he stated.

David looked at him, still scratching under the kitten's chin. "You already know that, since I won the State Championship for my age division. Mom's no slouch in the training department, either. Why are you here talking to me, anyway?"

"There is concern in the community that you may wind up like Slade's other sons," Batman lied.

"Oh, them," he said dismissively. "Look, I never met them or Rose's birthmother, and we don't talk about any of them much at home, but Rose turned out great. She's going to graduate from Tokyo University next year with honors. Why not use _her_ as an example instead of Grant and Joey? Maybe Dad wasn't the only one responsible for what happened to them."

"What about what he does for a living? Do you plan to go into the 'family business' when you grow up?"

"No, I don't think so. I'd rather go into video game design. At school, we're working on an RPG based on Japanese folklore and mythology. Yokai and stuff. You play a yokai who has to find work you like in the human world." His mouth quirked as if he was thinking of something funny. "It helps that Mom is—Japanese."

Why the pause when he spoke of his mother? "I see. What school do you go to?" Batman asked.

"Mountainside Montessori." Montessori schools were known for emphasizing the value of independence, allowing students a greater degree of freedom in how they learned. They were also private schools, and not inexpensive. His son, who was in many ways not his son, was being well cared for, it seemed. "Yet you still train in martial arts."

"Uh-huh. I'm really good, not just for my age, either. What, do I have to become some pudgy, basement-dwelling slob because I like game design? I can program what I know into games later on. Anyway, I'm only nine. I might change my mind later."

"I see. Then…I wish you well, in whatever you choose to do in life. Goodbye, David Wilson." Abruptly, he turned, got back in the Batmobile and drove away. Leaving was not an easy thing to do.

A few minutes later, Alfred interrupted his thoughts. "And did you find him, sir?"

"Yes. He looks—he might have been Damian standing there. Of course he looked like him. We don't even know which one of them was the original, or how many clones Talia made. She used some of them as organ banks, Alfred, and cannibalized them for parts when Damian was injured. They were just as much her sons—and mine—as Damian or David.

"In terms of personality, David is nothing like Damian, nothing at all. Pleasant and well-spoken, but cautious. He's thriving there, Alfred, with Slade and Yukie Wilson as his parents. I know I could demand paternity tests, challenge the adoption in court, since I never waived my parental rights but…I can't. It would be wrong."

"I believe you made the right decision, Master Bruce. Whatever people say of Mr. Wilson, sir, I have never heard that the second Mrs. Wilson was unreliable or vicious. Indeed, rather the opposite."

"True. And this way, at least—at least he's safe. And alive."

The End.

A/N: I hate the finality of completion even though I am so happy to write those two words. I started this story over a year ago, and it's become part of my life. Thank you so much to Swordstitcher, Tev, Batmanismyhero, my various 'Guests,' and everyone who's been following along and reading.

In one week's time, I will be moving this over to the 'Deathstroke' category of Comics. Why? Because otherwise, I fear it will get lost here. This is a popular category, and new stories are being added all the time. 'Deathstroke', on the other hand, has fewer than twenty fics, which is why I didn't post it there to begin with. People will be able to find it there on the first page for years and years!


End file.
